William Minter

On the 30th anniversary of the first reported case of AIDS, we may just have turned the corner on battling the disease — if we commit the resources.

A very small charge on currency transactions could raise billions for
development.

While the debate about sanctions in the case of Zimbabwe is heated, it often misses the point. Both supporters and opponents of sanctions exaggerate their importance and underestimate other policy tools. The reality is that sanctions are neither comprehensive nor targeted.

On the eve of Copenhagen, momentum is still falling short of what’s needed to prevent disaster. And Africa will feel the effects most of all.

In 2003 U.S. policy toward Africa will be driven almost exclusively by geopolitical considerations related to Washington’s war plans against Iraq, and by its geostrategic interests in African oil.

When and if President Bush does visit Africa, he may seek to avoid answering the question of whether he values African lives.

By almost any measure, the war on AIDS is more important than the war on terrorism. Yet Washington’s fixation with the latter—still loosely defined—campaign threatens to crowd out attention to Africa’s priorities.

Instead of taking the opportunity for dialogue, rich countries have offered little or nothing to address the concerns of African and other developing countries.

In practice, however, Washington’s legacies of neglect and of inappropriate policies toward Africa have remained largely in place with the same overall guidelines

The absence of a coherent U.S. foreign policy agenda—except in the expansion of exports and investments to promising new markets—leaves U.S. policy decisions at the mercy of old and new prejudices, while ad hoc response to crises becomes more the norm than the exception.