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From Our Own Correspondent: Uganda and Ireland

01/04/2011

Uganda and Ireland

BBC World Service - From Our Own Correspondent, Uganda and Ireland

Supporting Gaddafi in Uganda and Ireland's financial hole

John Murphy with despatches from Will Ross, who finds an unexpected amount of support for Gaddafi in Uganda; and Joe Lynam, reflecting on the property boom which broke Ireland's economy.

John Murphy presents stories from BBC correspondents around the world.

Gaddafi's African connections

As the fighting sweeps back and forth in Libya, another economic struggle is going on - to find and freeze the worldwide assets of Colonel Gaddafi and his family. Already the UN, the EU, the US and a number of other countries have frozen tens of billions of dollars' worth of Libyan monies and property. 

But some African countries have not followed their example.  Colonel Gaddafi has built close ties with communities across the continent and, as Will Ross has been discovering in Uganda, the Libyan leader has considerable support there.

Ireland's financial hole

There's been more bad economic news for the Irish this week. After new "stress tests" of four major banks and building societies, the Irish Central Bank confirmed that the country's debt crisis is even worse than first thought.  

Because the government last year guaranteed all the major bank losses, it's now estimated that every man, woman and child in Ireland owes the equivalent of around twenty four thousand US dollars. Most of the Irish banking sector is now, effectively, state owned. And at the core of this financial nightmare, as Joe Lynam explains, has been an unhealthy public appetite for bricks and mortar.

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