African kings, SADC-PF and ....

Two issues highlighted in recent blog entries have gone mainstream. Today's Business Day carries an article which brings the differing stances between Botswana and South Africa on an EPA with the EU right into the open (or at least into the South African press); it even quotes from the original Sunday Standard article! And IRIN has reported on the new poverty report out of Namibia (Ben Roberts, a former HSRC/SARPN colleague is a co-author of the report). The full report can be accessed via the link in the IRIN article. The just-concluded SADC-PF meeting in Arusha sees SADC parliamentarians again calling for a regional parliament - a regular refrain these last few years but which does not seem to get heard by those in power across the region. And on a less serious note "African kings" have called for a Union Government for Africa. What is in it for them? Read the article and you will see why it will not fly!