My Kitchen Table

Tough economic times ahead for Africa

Grim news today from the World Bank about Africa. The Voice of America reports that the bank is predicting that growth on the continent will fall to about half what it's been over the past few years.

World Bank Vice President for Africa Obi Ezekwesili, attending the African Union summit in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, says, unless wealthy countries help quickly, the financial downturn spreading across the globe could ruin Africa's long spell of promising economic growth.

"Remember that this continent, until a decade ago, was growing at a negative rate of growth on the average. At most it would grow at two percent," Ezekwesili said. "In the last decade or so, this same continent was growing at a rate of 5.8 percent."

Ezekwesili says the downturn is likely to dry up the important private-sector investments that have seen huge advances in telecommunications infrastructure that have led Africa's impressive economic performance.

With a president whose father was born in Africa, I imagine we'll see a fairly tough push on Obama to help out economically. Whether he can or not, taking into account the situation in the US, is yet to be seen.

It looks like the Conservative government will fall in Canada

The three opposition parties -- the Liberals, the New Democratic Party (socialists) and the Bloc Quebecois (separatist party) signed an agreement yesterday to bring down the Conservative minority government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Monday.

It's almost totally unprecedented in Canadian politics. You have to go back to the Byng-King crisis of 1926 (too long to explain: Byng was the governor general, King was PM) to find something even similar. But I talked with a senior Canadian journalist friend this morning and he told me that it's almost certain that the government will be defeated on a financial bill on Monday. If a government is defeated on a money bill, the government must resign. The governor general must then either allow the PM to call a new election or allow the opposition parties to try and form a government.

So if this happens, Liberal leader Stephane Dion will become Prime Minister for several months while a new leader of the Liberal Party is picked. (Dion stepped down after the general election in October when he was overwhelming rejected by Canadians.) One of the leading contenders for the Liberals is former Harvard University professor Michael Ignatieff. The Liberals will have 18 cabinet posts and the NDP nine, I believe. The separatist Bloc said it would support the new coalition only until June of 2010. Here is a good piece from the Globe and Mail in T.O.

Most people believe this was brought about by a serious miscalculation by PM Harper. In Canada, federal elections are funded by the government - up to a point. Harper brought in a bill out of nowhere to eliminate this funding -- most commentators said it was a pure power grab to try and destroy the opposition. He just didn't figure they would ever band together against him. Now many in his own party are calling for his head.

But my friend said it was totally weird for this to happen. Like walking up to find out that Ralph Nader had become president.

U.S. Calls Berlusconi "Political Amateur"

U.S. officials were trying not to look like a bunch of horses' behinds while apologizing to Italian officials for issuing a press release that called Italian Silvio Berlusconi "a political amateur who had used his massive media influence to gain political power."

The Guardian reports that "The briefing given to White House press corps was lifted, administration officials said, from the Encyclopedia of World Biography, and put in a briefing pack as though it represented the views of the administration."

(Ah, laziness and the Internet - it'll do you in every time.)

The Encyclopedia's description said the Italian PM was "one of the most controversial leaders in the history of a country known for governmental corruption and vice ... regarded by many as a political dilettante who gained his high office only through use of his considerable influence on the national media until he was forced out of office in 2006."

Opps. Didn't they start wars over this kind of thing in the past?

Real Politiks Point: The official apology should have read, "The U.S. is deeply sorry for having so truthfully described Mr. Berlusconi's terms as Italian PM. Since Mr. Berlusconi is such a good friend of President Bush, we should have totally ignored his attempts to subvert democracy and change Italian laws in order to escape the many corruption charges that have been filed against him. We regret using this shockingly accurate description."