Science of sporting success...

Constance Holden investigates some of the reasons why Kenyan atheletes run harder and faster than Scandinavians, and asks why West Africans dominate short distance races. Link: http://search.ft.com/search/article.html?id=040730000361&query=black+west+african&vsc_appId=totalSearch&state=Form

The bribe culture...

My colleague Mark Weston with two apparently commonplace instances of bribery in health and security in Ghana. One woman had to pay to get out of hospital:

...beds in the city's maternity wards are often occupied by perfectly healthy women, detained while their families scrape together the money to get them out.

West African nations back anti-polio campaign

Seven West African nations have agreed to co-ordinate in future immunization campaigns against polio. The Nigerian site of Kano is reported to be preparing to vaccinate 4 million children in in five days - the campaign was delayed after objections from radical Islamic objections to a previous US funded programme. Nigeria currently has 80% of the world's polio outbreaks.

Nigerian president to head African Union

Olusegun Obasanjo succeeds Joaquim Alberto Chissano as Chair of the African Union at its third summit in Addis Ababa. He outlined his backing for the Union's vision and strategy documents, which amongst other things commend the work of NEPAD for its work in helping to integrate regional markets. Meanwhile Lybia and Ethiopia compete to host the AU's permanent headquarters.

Weston in Africa

My colleague Mark Weston is in Africa at the moment. No doubt it's having a profound effect on the old curmudgeon.