James5

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“Hinging the destiny of a country to an individual is absolutely not correct” quote from Eriya Kategaya, a former Ugandan cabinet minister, in this article on the “Danger in Embracing Africa’s Visionary Leaders”. The article is a good take on the return to the “One Big Man” approach to development - that the African way is to have one chief, a benevolent dictator, and that’s how things will get fixed. History, though, says otherwise.

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Bancroft has an interesting article on the use of the right to self-determination under international law in relation to Georgia and South-Ossetia. The support giving to Kosovo’s independence, despite international law to the contrary may have set a dangerous precedent for other conflicted states. I think ’self-determination’, in the sense of forming new states, should always be the last option. Especially if the states get divide on purely ethnic or linguistic lines. Surely, European history combined with the lessons from Rwanda, Ethiopia and elsewhere is that division of the world into ethnic enclaves is not a solution to conflict.

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Joshua Gans has his take on the doomed FuelWatch scheme. He seems to be saying that it will reduce prices by increasing competition, and that’s why the independents are against it.

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Rodrik’s article in the Guardian makes some good points about the recent failure over Doha. Let’s hope that when things get back on track we can get a real development agenda going and the WTO can start living up to its preamble more.

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I found this post by John Fox on ‘Chinese fakery’ quite interesting. I find it too easy to forget the repressive nature of modern day China, and the issues Fox highlights are good reminders that all is not well.

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