African Poverty Linked to Agricultural Technology

People in Africa are poor because their labor as farmers has not yet been improved by science, including modern biotechnology. That's the overall conclusion of a new book by Wellesley College professor of political science Robert Paarlberg. He says U.S. foreign assistance to agricultural science in Africa has fallen by 75 percent in the past two decades, he notes, and the foreign assistance of European governments is now often predicated on staying away from modern agricultural science.

News Sources: Kenyan Riots

Police battled rampaging youths in western Kenya as ethnic clashes that have left more than 100 people dead in the past four days spread across the country. Tribal violence has killed nearly 900 people there since elections last month. Reporters looking for experts to interview on this topic can find them online at the collegenews.org database of news sources and subject matter experts from America's leading liberal arts colleges, including the following (click on names for contact information):

The Hon. Joseph Melrose - Professor of Politics and International Relations, Ursinus College - Melrose retired from the U.S. Department of State in 2002, after three decades in the Foreign Service, most recently as Ambassador to Sierra Leone, where he helped broker a peace treaty. In the fall of 2006 he served as Senior Advisor to the U.S. Delegation to the 61st United Nations General Assembly for the State Department. He also led the Foreign Emergency Support Team, deployed to Nairobi, Kenya in the aftermath of the Embassy bombings, where he helped oversee the reestablishment of Embassy operations and the recovery effort.

Kevin Dunn - Assistant Professor of Political Science, Hobart and William Smith Colleges - Dunn specializes in the politics and development in Africa, theories of international relations and U.S. foreign policy. He has investigated how theory and practice in international relations differ-with particular attention paid to U.S. foreign policy toward underdeveloped nations. Dunn co-edited Africa's Challenge to International Relations Theory.

Eve Sandberg - Associate Professor of Politics, Oberlin College - Sanberg is an expert on contemporary African affairs, political economies of developing nations and international relations. She has given talks for the USIA, Council on African Studies at Yale and Columbia and she edited The Changing Politics of Non-Governmental Organizations and African States.

African Political Scientist Joins Bennington

Bennington College has made another impressive addition to its already formidable international relations faculty. Rotimi Suberu, considered by some to be one of the rising stars among younger political scientists in Africa, will join Bennington College's faculty this fall.