Foreign Policy In Focus

JEFFREY BROWN: Despite the aerial bombardments, Islamist insurgents took more territory today, including a strategic military camp, according to French and Malian military officials . . .

EMIRA WOODS, Institute For Policy Studies: Mali . . . is a country that is rich in resources from gold to uranium, vital minerals in Mali. There are also explorations of oil, particularly in Northern Mali. So it is a country that is rich in resources, that has actually been really the center of a democratic process for quite some time. . . .

JEFFREY BROWN: Now, Emira Woods, the French connection here clearly goes back to colonial ties. What caused the French to step in, do you think? And what is their -- what are they hoping to do? How limited an action do you think this might be?

EMIRA WOODS: Well, the French are the colonial powers. They are formally the colonial powers there in West Africa and in Mali in particular.

And so they have a historic tie. I think you also have some more recent ties with French oil companies and just in part of the exploration of oil in Mali as well. So there's some economic ties as well that we shouldn't underestimate. But clearly what France has done is a unilateral action.

And I think alarm bells have to go off when a nation-state like France, a former colonial power, goes in and launches unilateral military action. The concern is that, you know, we have a United Nations, an international body, that should bring forward the collective will of the international community when there are crises like this.

US officials are looking to build an “atmosphere of condemnation” around North Korea, which already is “one of the most heavily sanctioned countries in the world,” John Feffer of the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington DC said.

“For a trip like this to go forward is to basically go against this overall atmosphere of condemnation,” Feffer told RT.

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According to Feffer, the country’s key strategic location is also important, “North Korea is in the middle of one of the top economic zones in the world, so if you’re going to open up a business in North-East Asia, why not think of North Korea?”

But North Korean leaders have a big problem, he added, in a sense that no Western investors are actually willing to go to North Korea.

North Korea’s elite, however, are interested in information technology, so a visit from one of the top corporations in the world is a great incentive for them, Feffer said.

“They see themselves as taking information technology as a vehicle into the 21st century. So having someone like Google’s Eric Schmidt come for a visit is extraordinary important for the IT success of North Korea,” he argued.