Heidi Kingstone

Wednesday

Heidi Kingstone

WEB EXCLUSIVE: What fuels China’s Africa policy

From our UK edition

Heidi Kingstone on the motivation behind China's relations with Africa Steven Spielberg’s conscience finally got the better of him. The Oscar-winning director resigned as ‘artistic adviser’ to the upcoming 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics last night.  His “energy”, he said, “must be spent on doing all I can to help bring an end to the unspeakable crimes against humanity that continue to be committed in Darfur.” It is ‘energy’ that is at the root of all this commotion. China buys about two-thirds of Sudan’s oil exports.

Saturday

Heidi Kingstone

Nato’s Commander in Kabul

From our UK edition

Dan McNeill, Nato’s commander in Kabul, tells Heidi Kingstone that even a ‘hard-bitten dude’ faces a struggle to make the liberated country function as an orderly society Dan McNeill used to give his briefings from a rocking-chair. Today, as he opens the door to his Kabul office, there is no rocking-chair in sight. As the Commander of the coalition International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, he is arguably, next to President Karzai, the most powerful man in the country. With his grey crew-cut, blue eyes and sangfroid, he epitomises a US military man. Reserved, considered, he is not instantly friendly, rather more professional than personable.