Only Mugabe and his friends benefit from Zimbabwe’s diamond wealth.

The Kimberly Process has become a whitewash; Roger Bate reports from Africa.

Introduction

For a bankrupt country in the middle of hyperinflation, the discovery of a major diamond deposit in Zimbabwe in June 2006 should have been good news. Instead it has provided sustenance to a volatile and violent political elite that suppresses the majority. The power sharing/coalition government in Zimbabwe came into...

President Obama is right to send troops to advise African forces going after the leader of the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda.

The recent kidnapping of a handicapped French woman from a Kenyan resort, initially attributed to Somali pirates, was the second such kidnapping in a month. Kenyan authorities now blame al-Shabab, the Somali terrorist group affiliated with al Qaeda. Why should we treat the growing menace of Somali piracy differently from terrorism?

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As the international community and the US discovered in the early 1990s, getting humanitarian aid to needy Somalis is not an apolitical undertaking. It may not even be possible without being drawn into conflict in the Horn of Africa once again.

Could your new diamond engagement ring be supporting Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe?

The Office of Foreign Assets Control in the United States has taken explicit steps in the direction of sanctions and freezing assets of shipping companies that give in to pirate demands but the Contact Group must encourage other countries to do the same.