Saturday, March 8

China, Darfur, and Ronald Reagan

The Washington Post describes China's new response to calls for an Olympics boycott over its failure to push China on Darfur: George Bush, Gordon Brown, and Nicholas Sarkozy all plan to attend, so what's the problem? Virginia Republican congressman Frank Wolf this week called for Bush Administration officials not to attend, playing the the Reagan card: "Ronald Reagan would have never gone to the Olympics. I guarantee you that. Never gone." (Reuters).

Meanwhile, the head of the UN's peacekeeping department, Jean-Marie Guehenno announced this week that he will be stepping down in June (LAT). He's been around a long-time - eight years - so it makes sense he'd want to move on. But he was also a critic of the decision to send peacekeepers to Darfur without a peace to keep, and he probably didn't relish the prospect of dealing with the troubles that will almost certainly face what will likely be one of the UN's highest-profile missions in the next few years.

Also worth a look, AFP on the difficulties of the EU peacekeeping mission on the Chad-Sudan border.

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