The nations of sub-Saharan Africa have struggled since they gained independence in the 1960s. In recent years, democracy and peace finally came to South Africa, Namibia, Nigeria, and Mozambique, but dictatorships, civil wars, poverty and disease still thrive in much of the continent. Fighting continues between the northerners who control the country and rebel movements in the Christian and animist south.
Critics say the slave trade is still rampant in Sudan.
The country is also suspected of harboring terrorists. Ethiopia isn't quite the famine-ridden place Americans remember from the 1980s. A 17-year civil war ended in 1991 and an elected government took power in 1995. The country had slashed defense spending and was on its way to recovery when it started a disastrous border war with Eritrea in 1998, which has been draining the coffers of both countries and imperiling their fragile economies. Prime Minister Meles Zenawi's political position is tenuous.