Dioncounda Traore, the interim president of Mali, requests ECOWAS military assistance: logistics, training, equipment, aerial support - but no ground troops.
About three weeks after the 2008 Presidential elections in the USA I found myself in Adis Ababa, Ethiopia. I was standing outside UNICEF's headquarters where a street vendor approached me to show off his wares: a box of bootlegged DVDs of Barack Obama's 2008 Democratic National Convention acceptance speech.
Azerbaijan and Armenia could be set for another flare-up after the pardon of a convicted murderer. The two Caucasus states have been at each others' throats for almost 90 years, but have managed to keep a relative, though highly strained, peace for the last two decades. That may change for the worse.