Secretary of State Hillary Clinton meets with Russia’s Foreign Minister to discuss Iran’s nuclear program. A senior Russian official says that further sanctions against Iran would be “counterproductive,” and Clinton agrees that “we are not at that point yet.”

Russia and China agree to a framework for the export of Russian oil and gas supplies to China. The deal is part of $3.5 billion worth of trade agreements signed at a meeting between leaders of the two countries in Beijing.

Romania’s Democratic Liberal Government falls after loosing a vote of no confidence in parliament; the first such collapse since the end of Communist rule in 1989.

South African police fire tear gas and rubber bullets as thousands protest demanding basic services such as sanitation, electricity and housing in several northeastern townships.

As its presence in Africa grows, so has criticism of the methods China uses to secure the continent’s wealth. Western governments have criticized China for ignoring gross human rights violations and securing exploitative terms in its trade deals. And African governments have criticized China for giving overwhelming preference to Chinese workers at the expense of locals when hiring for the many infrastructure projects funded by China.

Despite the criticism, China appears to be in Africa to stay. It will become the continent’s largest trading partner by 2011, and China now depends on Africa for 30% of its oil. But oil is just the tip of the iceberg. Click on the map icons below to see where China is active on the African continent, what it hopes to get in return, and the inevitable tensions that have arisen as its footprint gradually grows. Where icons overlap, zoom in on the map to see further details. All statistics refer to Sub-Saharan Africa.

Note: While Western governments have expressed concern about China’s expansion into Africa, China still remains a relatively small player compared to the West. In 2008, it exported only 9 percent of Africa’s oil while Europe and the U.S. exported 36 percent and 33 percent respectively. And China’s investment of $10 billion in African oil infrastructure is less than one tenth of the $168 billion spent by other international companies, such as Exxon Mobil, Shell and Total.

Violent clashes between Islamic militants and the Nigerian police spread to four states in northern Nigeria, killing as many as 150 people. The militants belong to a group called Boko Haram, which means “Western education is a sin.”

Final arguments are made today in the trial of Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who faces up to five years in prison for violating the terms of her house arrest. A verdict is expected on Friday.

Violent protests against joblessness and lack of basic services combined with strikes by municipal workers demanding a salary increase cripple Johannesburg and other major cities in South Africa.

The first Guantanamo detainee to face charges in a U.S. civilian court arrives in Manhattan. Indicted for his role in the bombings of the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, Ahmed Ghailani is expected to appear in court later this afternoon.

Oil-giant Shell agrees to pay a $15.5 million settlement in the case of nine environmental and human rights activists who were hung in Nigeria in 1995. Shell allegedly hired government troops to shoot protesters opposed to the construction of an oil pipeline in the Niger Delta.

Zimbabwe could be heading for a new wave of violence in the lead up to elections scheduled for 2010. Opposition leaders have been receiving threatening phone calls saying that their names are being added to an assassination list.

HIV-prevention interventions appear to be paying off in South Africa — a new study shows that infection rates in children have declined, while rates have leveled off at 10.9 percent among the general population.

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg visits South Korea and calls on North Korea to choose dialogue over further provocative action. He does not rule out the possibility of sanctions.

French and Brazilian ships search for debris – and possibly bodies – near the crash site of the doomed Air France flight that disappeared on Monday.

India’s parliament unanimously chooses its first women speaker – Meira Kumar.

Amid a global economic crisis and South Africa’s worst recession, newly elected President Jacob Zuma vows to create half a million jobs in six months. Oponents dismiss his plans as a “wish list.”

A private Chinese firm buys Hummer from General Motors, but says it has no plans to build a new manufacturing plant.

North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-il designates his twenty-six year old youngest son Kim Jong-un as successor.

China blocks access to Twitter, Flickr and other Internet sites two days prior to the twentieth anniversary of the Tiananmen protests in which hundreds of students were shot and killed. Chinese agents also detain noted Chinese dissident Wu Gaoxing after he complains about the treatment of former political prisoners.

The Brazilian Air Force finds debris including plane seats in the Atlantic near where Air France flight 447 is thought to have gone down.

Pakistan releases the founder of the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba, a group India holds partially responsible for the Mumbai terrorist attacks that killed 166 last November.

Somali government forces drive Islamist insurgents from two districts in Mogadishu as renewed fighting kills dozens. 70,000 have been displaced since the fighting started.

The death toll among miners killed while illegally extracting gold from a South African mining company rises to 61. The illegal mining has been driven by a worsening economy and rising gold prices.

President Barack Obama announces the resumption of controversial military tribunals against terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay, while granting prisoners new rights.

Tens of thousands of Pakistan civilians take advantage of the suspension of a curfew to flee the Swat Valley.

Gay activists planning a gay pride parade in Moscow to coincide with the Eurovision Song Contest face violence from anti-gay groups. Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov has banned the parade, calling it “satanic” and accusing homosexuals of spreading HIV.

South Africa reverses course and allows the Dalai Lama to visit. Critics have contended South Africa bowed to pressure from China in initially denying him a visa.

Hundreds of foreign militants are joining the fight against the Somali government.

Security forces kill sixty-four militants in fighting in Buner and Swat Valley in northwest Pakistan.

Russia announces that it will expel two NATO envoys in retaliation for the expulsion of two members of the Russian misson to NATO who were accused of spying.

Jacob Zuma is formally sworn in as President of South Africa.

]]> http://www.pbs.org/wnet/wideangle/uncategorized/world-links/4688/feed/ 0 http://www.pbs.org/wnet/wideangle/uncategorized/world-links/4650/ http://www.pbs.org/wnet/wideangle/uncategorized/world-links/4650/#comments Thu, 23 Apr 2009 15:43:38 +0000 lucy kennedy http://www.pbs.org/wnet/wideangle/?p=4650 Two suicide bombs kill at least 70 people in Iraq, and Iraqi officials say they have captured Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, one of the country’s most wanted al Qaeda leaders.

Two Pakistani police officers are killed in Taliban-infiltrated Buner, 60 miles from Islamabad.

Polls show the African National Congress party headed for victory in yesterday’s national elections in South Africa.

South African opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, declares victory in the Western Cape Province.

]]> http://www.pbs.org/wnet/wideangle/uncategorized/world-links/4650/feed/ 0 http://www.pbs.org/wnet/wideangle/uncategorized/world-links/4644/ http://www.pbs.org/wnet/wideangle/uncategorized/world-links/4644/#comments Wed, 22 Apr 2009 14:44:10 +0000 lucy kennedy http://www.pbs.org/wnet/wideangle/?p=4644 South African election officials predict a record turnout in today’s general election. In the South African province of Gauteng, officials report that ballot boxes are too full.

Jacob Zuma, leader of South Africa’s ruling party, the African National Conference, is confident that a high voter turnout will result in a “decisive mandate” for the ANC.

Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling, announces a 50% tax raise for those earning more than 150,000 pounds annually, and predicts that the British economy will shrink by 3.5% in 2009.

Pakistani Taliban militants expand their control to Buner, a district adjacent to the Swat Valley.

]]> http://www.pbs.org/wnet/wideangle/uncategorized/world-links/4644/feed/ 0 http://www.pbs.org/wnet/wideangle/blog/zumaphobes-and-zumamaniacs-head-to-the-polls-in-south-africa/4639/ http://www.pbs.org/wnet/wideangle/blog/zumaphobes-and-zumamaniacs-head-to-the-polls-in-south-africa/4639/#comments Tue, 21 Apr 2009 17:23:41 +0000 lauren feeney http://www.pbs.org/wnet/wideangle/?p=4639 South Africans go to the polls on Wednesday to vote in the fourth national elections since apartheid ended in 1994. WIDE ANGLE web producer Lauren Feeney spoke with Azad Essa, political blogger for the South African newspaper The Mail and Guardian, about the significance of the upcoming elections.

WIDE ANGLE: The ANC, or African National Congress party is expected to win elections there on Wednesday. Can you tell us what this party stands for, and how it has changed since Nelson Mandela was the party’s leader?

AZAD ESSA: The mantra of this party has always been “the people shall govern.” If anything, the party and its supporters believe that this mantra, over the past 10 years, with Thabo Mbeki as the second [post-apartheid] president, was lost. Thabo Mbeki was a suited-up politician with a foreign education. The ANC supporters believe that today, this party is back in working class control with a grassroots leader like Jacob Zuma.

WIDE ANGLE: Jacob Zuma is the leader of the ANC and likely the next president of South Africa. But Zuma has been dogged by corruption charges that were only recently dropped. What exactly was he accused of, and does he have the trust of the South African people?

AZAD ESSA: Jacob Zuma is a very, very interesting character. He’s had I think something like 750 counts of corruption against him — all sorts of racketeering, and other shady deals that he’s been accused of. The most significant issue was this arms deal with a French company, a multi-million dollar arms deal, and Zuma was accused of accepting bribes, et cetera, et cetera. He was charged and as a result was pushed to resign; he lost his job as deputy president. The issue has dragged on from that time, since 2005, and has been dropped and recharged and dropped, but now it’s been dropped completely because there’s enough evidence to suggest that the entire accusation against him was motivated politically. It’s very interesting that that happened last week, one week before the elections.

The trust of the people issue is very incredible. We have three types of voter in this country at the moment: the guy who’s supporting Zuma, the guy who’s afraid of Zuma, and the person who is going to vote for the ANC despite Zuma. The Zuma supporter, I call him the Zumamaniac, doesn’t mind that Zuma might be really guilty of these corruption charges. For him, everything that’s pitched against Zuma is a political conspiracy, and Zuma and the working class cause have become synonymous with each other. At the same time, you have sort of the middle class liberal thinker in South Africa who is very much against Zuma — Zumaphobic in a way. He believes that Zuma has his charm, but until and unless we get a case and he’s tried in a court of law and found not guilty, I’m not going to trust this guy, and we’re only really going to get somewhere in this country if we stem corruption from the start. And then, as I say, there’s the third guy who says, I’m supporting the ANC because of the history that it brings, and what the ANC stands for in the first place.

WIDE ANGLE: Who’s the opposition in this race?

AZAD ESSA: The Democratic Alliance headed by Capetown mayor Helen Zille is the main opposition. Now, the Democratic Alliance is still majority-white; it still represents white interests, or is perceived to represent white interests. Nonetheless, over the past 2, 3 years it has emerged in leaps and bounds and has tried to rebrand itself as a truly South African party. The thing with the Democratic Alliance is that it’s a pro-capital party, and its campaigning has been with that focus — it’s striving to reduce labor laws to some extent, and it’s trying to attract foreign investment, and this is not going down very well with most people in the country. So it’s a very strange campaign, because while it’s trying to attract all, most South Africans are still very strongly allied with trade unions, so the D.A. looses a lot of possible membership because of that.

But what’s interesting about this election is the advent of the new opposition, and that’s the Congress of People Party or COPE. What happened after liberation when the country became a democracy is that obviously there were going to be very different ideas about how the country should be governed, but these differences have never come to the fore as they have today, and this has lead to the split of the ANC and the creation of the Congress of the People Party.

COPE is made up of all the guys within the ANC who have problems with Zuma’s presidency. COPE just emerged recently, and so it’s unclear what they stand for. So if you’re not supporting the ANC, you have a problem regarding who to support, because it’s not necessarily that these guys promote or offer anything much better, they just promise a future without Zuma. In the D.A. election campaign, you see posters out on the street saying “Stop Zuma. Vote for the D.A.” So this kind of demonizing of Jacob Zuma is almost the basis of both election campaigns.

WIDE ANGLE: The results of this election seem to be a foregone conclusion — everyone is expecting Jacob Zuma and the ANC to win — but nonetheless, people are calling it one of the most important elections in South African history. Why is this election so important?

AZAD ESSA: I think the first thing is that there’s been a surge in the amount of people taking part in this election, so we’re looking at 23 million people out of a total population of around 50 million that are going to be voting, so that’s an incredible achievement, and that has also come from, believe it or not, this Obama sort of mania, where people believe we’ve got to take part to change things.

Probably the most significant thing is the tears within the ANC. It’s a very fascinating and very important time in South African politics because people are wondering, is this the election that showcases the beginning of a real opposition in this country? Because until now there has been no real opposition, I mean, in 2004, the ANC won 69 percent of the vote. With the advent of COPE, and with the D.A. gaining because of people not wanting to vote for Zuma, people are wondering if it’s going to be less than 60 percent for the ANC, so maybe in the next election in 2014, maybe there will be a real opposition by that time.

In a symbolic gesture of good will France agrees to take one prisoner from Guantanamo Bay. French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, also expresses support for Obama’s plan for Afghanistan.

Suspected Taliban militants attack NATO vehicles in Pakistan.

Zimbabweans seeking asylum in South Africa are to be given a special six-month residence permit.

Nigerian president Umaru Musa Yar’Adua promises amnesty to militants in the oil-rich Niger Delta if they lay down their arms.

]]> http://www.pbs.org/wnet/wideangle/uncategorized/world-links/4512/feed/ 0 http://www.pbs.org/wnet/wideangle/episodes/by-topic/world-links-increased-security-on-mexican-border-executions-up-worldwide/4442/ http://www.pbs.org/wnet/wideangle/episodes/by-topic/world-links-increased-security-on-mexican-border-executions-up-worldwide/4442/#comments Tue, 24 Mar 2009 17:18:20 +0000 lauren feeney http://www.pbs.org/wnet/wideangle/?p=4442 The Obama administration announces a plan to increase security along the Mexican border in an effort to prevent a wave of drug-related violence from spilling over into the U.S.

Israel’s prime minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu reaches a coalition agreement with Labor party leader Ehud Barak.

Organizers call off a peace conference in Johannesburg after the South African government refuses the a visa for the Dalai Lama.

Serbia marks the 10th anniversary of the start of NATO’s bombing campaign.

Amnesty International reports that the number of executions worldwide doubled last year, with Asian countries putting more people to death than the rest of the world combined, and China leading the way.

At least 30 people are killed and over 50 injured when a suicide bomber attacks the funeral procession for a slain Shia leader in the city of Dera Ismail Khan, in northwest Pakistan.

In her first trip as Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, visiting Seoul, urges North Korea to suspend its ballistic missile program, and broaches the taboo subject what comes after Kim Jong-il, the 67-year-old dictator who allegedly suffered two strokes last year.

Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai says it could cost $5 billion to rebuild his country’s economy, and asks for aid from neighboring South Africa.