Darfur: Packaging a Tragedy | Newsweek International

'Darfur Is Low-Hanging Fruit for Beijing'
Mark Starr 4/17/2008 12:00:00 AM
Hundreds of America's top Olympic athletes gathered in Chicago this week to meet with the media that will report on their triumphs and disappointments from Beijing this August. At the same time human rights activists were ratcheting up the pressure on China on a host of issues. Darfur is at the forefront, as China finds itself under attack for selling arms to Sudan and for acquiescing to policies that jeopardize the survival of the refugees. As a result many of the U.S. athletes found themselves being asked—beyond the usual questions of hopes and dreams, training regimens and doping controversies—about Darfur and whether athletes should use the Olympic platform to speak out in protest.
AFRICA
‘Fragile Institutions’
2/12/2008 12:00:00 AM
Before the recent unrest in Kenya, America's top diplomat to Africa was already busy. Jendayi Frazer, assistant secretary of state for African affairs, has tried to hold together fragile peace agreements in southern Sudan and Africa's Great Lakes region, while keeping an eye on Islamic militants in Somalia and the continued decline of Zimbabwe. An acolyte of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice from their days together at Stanford—where Frazer wrote her dissertation on military-civilian relationships in the Kenyan government—Frazer recently spoke with NEWSWEEK's Jason McLure in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Excerpts:
KENYA
Kenya Countdown
Katie Paul 2/1/2008 12:00:00 AM
Should foreign peacekeepers be deployed to Kenya? In spite of the involvement of high-profile facilitators, like former U.N. secretary-general Kofi Annan, killings are continuing in what was once one of Africa's most stable countries. Almost 1,000 people have died in political violence since the Dec. 27 presidential election left incumbent Mwai Kibaki claiming victory over challenger Raila Odinga. Many of the clashes have pitted members of Odinga's Luo tribe against Kibaki's Kikuyu, prompting the top U.S. diplomat for Africa, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer, to describe the fighting as ethnic cleansing. Robert Rotberg, an Africa expert at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, spoke to NEWSWEEK's Katie Paul about where conflict resolution efforts might be headed and what the international community should do next. Excerpts:
Helping Rwanda to Weep
Eric Pape 4/14/2006 12:00:00 AM
Boycott Opening Ceremonies
Jonathan Alter
It's a 100-day dash, and the world had better get at least a silver. In the time before the Beijing Olympics opens in August, the West has a chance to bring China further into the community of responsible nations. If we fail, we may spend the rest of the 21st century regretting that we didn't use some leverage when we had it. Half a dozen European leaders and the Democratic presidential candidates are urging a mini-boycott of Beijing's opening ceremonies. They're right to do so; it's the best shot we've got.
SOCIETY
Extinction Trade
Sharon Begley
The marauders galloped into Zakouma National Park in Chad, the last refuge of that country's once thriving elephant population. Rather than bother with the few remaining elephants, the attackers last May were after the 1.5 tons of ivory—worth as much as $1.3 million—that Chadian officials had seized from poachers over the years and stored in a strongroom at park headquarters. Neither the audacity of the attack nor its brutality—the raiders killed three park rangers—shocked wildlife officials: some 100 rangers, outgunned and outmanned, are killed every year defending Africa's wildlife. Rather, the shock was the identity of the attackers.