June 8 - Ralph Peters has some concrete proposals about The Smart Way to Aid Africa:

Educate the people: Nothing would be of more use to Africans than a long-term, comprehensive commitment from the United States to help them educate themselves at every level, from primary school through advanced-degree programs.

If you want to reduce disease, educate the people. If you want to break down violent rivalries, provide unbiased education. If you want to build economies, train workers. If you want to foster democracy, promote literacy.

In short, if you want to help Africa stop being a basket case, concentrate ruthlessly on education. Let the Europeans do the feel-good projects. Let celebrities give away granola bars. Stick to the mission of helping people learn.

Some African countries are significantly ahead of others in educational progress, but every one of them could use our help. Governments may be wary — despite their rhetoric, political bosses like to keep the poor ignorant (a rule that applies to our own inner cities as much as it does to Africa). But the people desperately want education.

When I visited Mozambique — one of the world's poorest countries — no one asked me for a handout. They asked about books and scholarships.

Wretchard has two recent posts on Zimbabwe here and here.

The first entry contains a letter from Sister Patricia Walsh of the Dominican Order of the Catholic Church in Zimbabwe and speaks for itself. The second entry is about "Stay Away" which seems to be a 2-day general strike at minimum and the quoted sections hint at possibly more. The bigger danger lies in how Mugabe will react should millions of people flout his authority.

Wretchard muses on the possibility that the U.S. has contingency plans should events in Zimbabwe erupt. I'd guess that the U.S. would prefer the kind of approach used in Liberia, but South Africa's Mbeki would be unlikely to go against Mugabe until the situation in Zimbabwe deteriorated far below what we could in all good conscience countenance.

(Note: the NY Post requires free registration. Sigh.)

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