A sad day for Zambia

Well the news finally arrived from France- President Mwanawasa has died. Despite Zambia's challenges, a vast majority of Zambians will sincerely mourn over the death of President Mwanawasa. Such a situation has never occurred before in Zambia, so it will be interesting to see what processes will be followed to elect a new leader. I'm also curious to see how it will be followed internationally in light of the disastrous elections recently held in Zimbabwe. There have been several off-colour jokes about sending Tsvangirai to rule Zambia in the wake of Mwanawasa's death. He did win an election...and has since been encouraged to seek a power-sharing agreement with Mugabe. I don't understand why anyone supports this idea, it only emphasizes the fact that there do not need to be free & fair elections in Africa. But now I've gotten side-tracked. Getting back to Zambia, I feel that Zambia needs a strong leader to take up where Mwanawasa has left off...and perhaps to bring some stability to a region that has turned upsidedown recently.

And I want to add another random comment here that might give my mother a heart attack. I have to admit that I'm irritated by all of the "hating on China". Yes- me. Me who refuses to buy any clothing made in China (for fear that it's made in a sweatshop), and me who has always valued human rights above all else. But I recently had a discussion (with my Rhodes scholar friend) about racism in Zambia. I mentioned that I felt that Asians get the worst end of the stick- they literally get chased down the street by random people doing karate moves & imitating Chinese accents. It's embarrassing. So Kupela went on to tell me that one of her friends did a fascinating study comparing a state-owned mine in Zambia's copperbelt region, and a Chinese mine in the same area. It turns out, in this study, that the workers were actually better taken care of (better financial packages/ benefits) at the Chinese-owned mine, and that fewer accidents occurred on the Chinese mine as well. Definitely different results than what most people would assume...but has it simply become too easy to point fingers at the Chinese because we've done so for so long?
Just some thoughts as the heat is turning up in Zambia...
And I haven't been able to see much of the Beijing Olympics, but I am trying to follow the good stories!!