(From l-r) European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, GhanaÕs President and Chairman of the African Union John Agyekum Kufuor, Portugal's Prime Minister Jose Socrates and African Union Commission's Chairman Alpha Oumar Konare speak at the final press conference of the EU-Africa summit in Lisbon, Dec. 9.

The summit between the EU and the African Union has showed once again the existing problems between these continents.
The summit, held in the Portuguese capital, Lisbon, gathered some 70 countries and the agenda was quite charged.
But the common goal of all the debated issues was to find the answer to one particular question: How we can ensure that Africa becomes an area of economic gain rather that a source of threats for European countries?
The majority of the EU countries consider the African continent the main source of “new threats.“ As such, two instruments are being proposed to cope with these threats. First of all, the economy was mentioned. Even if most of the financial transfers between Europe and Africa are labeled “assistance,“ it is obvious that most of the assistance money doesn’t serve the African peoples’ interests.
Europeans think that instead of working for their people’s well-being, African leaders have wasted this money or spent it on purchasing weapons.
European countries believe that Africa has been unable to improve its economic conditions despite all the European financial contributions and, as a result, immigration from Africa has become a major concern for Europe.
The second economic subject at the Lisbon summit was the increase of commercial interdependence. This discussion’s purpose was to enhance free trade, which will reinforce the unrestricted circulation of industrial goods.
Apparently, Europe wants to sell more manufactured goods to Africa or perhaps even produce them there.
These demands are perceived as a new kind of colonialism by most of the African countries because they believe that Europe’s only wish is to seize Africa’s rich resources of raw materials.
This perception has set the background for a new nationalism in the African continent, especially in the sub-Saharan region. Moreover, European countries are late in designating a common trade strategy for Africa given that Chinese, Russian and US enterprises already have an advantageous position in most of the strategic economic fields.
The second tool for shaping Africa’s future and eliminating threats is expressed in the magic word “democratization.“ As the example of Zimbabwe demonstrated during the summit, there are plenty of misunderstandings between Africa and Europe on this subject.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has stressed that the policies of Zimbabwe’s president, Robert Mugabe, are harmful for Africa as a whole, giving the impression that with the exception of this one leader everything is going well on the continent. Authoritarianism, war and discrimination should be condemned in every country, but we must avoid trying to understand a country by comparing it to other ones.
Many Africans are convinced the rhetoric of “democratization“ is nothing but a pretext for allowing Europeans to interfere in Africa. Besides, no one should expect countries who have obtained their independence only very recently to speak the same language as the European leaders on this matter.
The truth is that Africa will be the center of attraction for conflicts of the 21st century. This continent has complicated problems because of its disorganized and heterogeneous structure.
Great powers have omitted Africa for a very long time and now that they have realized that the problems cannot be ignored anymore, they have launched a new process to seek a balance of power.
In the past Europe has given money to Africa and complained that it was not spent correctly and Africa has refused to be interrogated about this, reminding Europe of its historical responsibilities.
This old vicious circle cannot be pursued much longer. Africa’s problems are of primary importance for Europe, but if the latter doesn’t start reasoning like the Africans, it will be hard to find solutions.
TODAYSZAMAN.COM

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been a disappointing leader for House Democrats, few serious observers of the congressional condition will deny.
But, now, she appears to be something more troubling: a serious hindrance to the fight against the use of crudest and most objectionable torture techniques.
Democrats and Republicans with a conscience have gotten a good deal of traction in recent months in their battle to identify the use by U.S. interrogators of waterboarding--a technique that simulates drowning in order to cause extreme mental distress to prisoners--as what it is: torture. Arizona Senator John McCain, a GOP presidential contender, has been particularly powerful in his denunciations of this barbarous endeavor.
And Senate Intelligence Committee chair Jay Rockefeller, D-West Virginia, and key members of the Senate Judiciary Committee have effectively pressed the issue on a number of fronts.
Now, however, comes the news that Pelosi knew as early as 2002 that the U.S. was using waterboarding and other torture techniques and, far from objecting, appears to have cheered the tactics on.
The Washington Post reports that Pelosi, who was then a senior member of the House Intelligence Committee, was were informed by CIA officials at a secret briefing in September 2002, that waterboarding and other forms of torture were being used on suspected al-Qaeda operatives.
That’s bad. Even worse is the revelation that Pelosi was apparently supportive of the initiative.
According to the news reports, Pelosi has no complaint about waterboarding during a closed-door session she attended with Florida Congressman Porter Goss, a Republican who would go on to head the Central Intelligence Agency, Kansas Republican Senator Pat Roberts and Florida Democratic Senator Bob Graham.
“The reaction in the room was not just approval, but encouragement,“ recalls Goss.
How encouraging? It is reported that two of the legislators demanded to know if waterboarding and other methods that were being employed “were tough enough“ forms of torture to produced the desired levels of mental anguish to force information from suspects who, under the Geneva Conventions and the U.S. Constitution, cannot be subjected to cruel or unusual punishment.
Was Pelosi one of the “tough-enough“ cheerleaders for waterboarding? That is not clear, as the speaker has refused to comment directly regarding her knowledge of torture techniques and encouragement of their use. Another member of the House who is closely allied with Pelosi did tell the Post, however, that the California Democrat attended the session, recalled that waterboarding was discussed, and “did not object“ at the time to that particular torture technique.
THENATION.COM

Symbolism matters in diplomacy, and that’s why recent developments in North Korea policy are worth applauding--softly. President Bush’s decision to set aside his loathing and send a letter to North Korean leader Kim Jong Il represents a triumph of practicality over ideology.
The New York Philharmonic has accepted an invitation to play in Pyongyang in February, and although serenading the erstwhile enemy is more controversial than writing to him, it’s an overture the United States can afford to make.
Moreover, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, the indefatigable U.S. negotiator with North Korea, paid a visit this month to the Yongbyon nuclear complex.
He witnessed the work of an American team that is helping to disable the plant that produced plutonium for North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, a joint venture that would have been unthinkable even two years ago.
It would be foolish to believe that Kim has made a final, strategic decision to give up his nuclear weapons in exchange for rapprochement with the West. Kim’s style has long been to keep his options open until the last possible minute and beyond, and then to renege if he believes it’s in his interests to do so.
But it would be more foolish not to engage in the slow and difficult process of finding out whether North Korea might in fact be induced to deliver on its historic but still sketchy nuclear disarmament deal.
Last February, Pyongyang vowed to freeze its plutonium program and allow inspections in exchange for fuel oil and related aid. North Korea watchers were understandably skeptical, but the deal held.
In October, North Korea again promised to make a full declaration of its nuclear arsenal and materiel to the International Atomic Energy Agency by the end of the year.
It was to remind Kim of that commitment that Bush wrote his letter.
The North Koreans have hinted that they may not be prepared to disclose all of their nuclear activities by that deadline, while Hill has been stressing that full disclosure means just that.
It remains to be seen whether the habitually secretive Pyongyang will expose and surrender its nuclear jewels, including the truth about what the U.S. believes was a hidden program to enrich uranium for use in nuclear devices, with technical help and centrifuge parts purchased from Pakistan. South Korea is rushing aid to its northern neighbor at a clip that makes the U.S. and Japan nervous.
But Hill deserves credit for prodding multiple capitals, including his own, down the ever-perilous path toward nuclear detente.
If America’s best negotiator thinks sending in a symphony might ease the sting of disclosure and save face for the North Koreans, by all means, let him deploy Beethoven. And Mozart. And Brahms.
LATIMES.COM

British soldiers with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force patrol in the streets of Kabul, Sept. 27.

Up to 6,000 British, American and Afghan forces fighting Taliban militants holding the strategically important Afghan town of Musa Qala were on Dec. 9 preparing for a final assault in the days to come.
“The operation goes on,“ said Lieutenant Colonel Tim Eaton, speaking from Lashkar Gah, the headquarters of the British forces deployed in Helmand, in the violent southern province. “It is like a game of chess and we are moving the right pieces into the right places so they are where we want them to be when we need them.“
He said the strategy was for the British troops to seal off the town, while the American troops “kicked down the door“ to allow Afghan troops to “rush through.“
The battle is the first major test of the new NATO-trained Afghan army.
A British soldier from the 2nd Battalion The Yorkshire Regiment was killed in fighting around Musa Qala on Dec. 8, and a spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan said another of its 42,000 soldiers died in the south of the country on Sunday when a vehicle struck a mine.
There are believed to have been further coalition casualties, although no details have yet been released. Taliban spokesmen, who routinely exaggerate figures, claimed that 30 NATO soldiers had been killed and several armoured vehicles destroyed as their fighters flooded into the area.
American troops began the operation, dropped by helicopter to positions south of the town.
With NATO planes bombing Taliban positions, British and Afghan troops took up positions south, west and east of the town exchanging gunfire with Taliban fighters dug in behind minefields.
According to the Afghan Defence Ministry, 12 insurgents and two children have died so far in the assault.
British troops involved in the fighting are from Royal Marines 40 Commando, the 2nd Battalion the Yorkshire Regiment and 1st Battalion the Scots Guards, supported by light tanks from the Household Cavalry.
A resident of the town said that Taliban fighters were surrounded and had been pushed back into the town’s centre.
The Taliban were using “big weapons“ to keep Afghan and international forces back, Haji Mohammad Rauf told the Associated Press. “Outside I can hear the sounds of explosions.“
Musa Qala is strategically important as it commands much of the fertile flat land of northern Helmand and is close to key British-held strongholds in Sangin, Nowzad, and Kajaki. However, its importance is symbolic.
After heavy fighting last year Musa Qala was handed over to a council of tribal elders in a British-led initiative that was criticised by senior U.S. commanders and politicians. In February, the Taliban retook control of the town.
Musa Qala also sits astride key drug trafficking routes. Helmand province is the biggest opium producing area in Afghanistan.
The number of Taliban fighters in the town is unknown; however Eaton dismissed Taliban claims of 2,000 fighters in Musa Qala, estimating their number at “closer to 200.“
ISAF commanders are keen on emphasising the Afghan element of the operation.
The training of a competent and effective Afghan National Army is a key part of the strategy to rebuild Afghanistan and create a sufficiently secure environment to allow international forces to be withdrawn.
“Right now [the Musa Qala operation] is going according to plan. As to how tough the fighting will or will not be, that is up to the insurgents,“ General Dan McNeill, the American commander of ISAF, told reporters.
The Afghan Defence Ministry claimed the capture of two Taliban commanders, Mullah Mateen Akhond and Mullah Rahim Akhond.
Military commanders in Afghanistan describe the Taliban as composed of three “tiers“: a hardcore of ideologically committed militants; a second layer of “fellow travellers“ pursuing agendas that overlap with those of the Taliban such as feuds or drug trafficking; and a third tier of foot soldiers fighting for a mixture of reasons.
This year has been the deadliest in Afghanistan since the US-led invasion in 2001 with more than 6,200 people estimated to have been killed in insurgency-related violence.
GUARDIAN.CO.UK