A stunning African triumph; Playing China and India against each other; A third of Britons can't afford holiday

1 A stunning African triumph (Jonathan Power in Khaleej Times) Last week, Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, observed that “in the last decade after emerging Asia, Africa recorded the world’s strongest growth rates. “In some cases”, she wrote, “the African lions outpaced the Asian tigers in their first two decades.”

Judging from the substantial spending of the US’s Millennium Challenge Corporation, Tanzania is the most successful lion of them all. This aid programme is contingent not just on economic and social policies but also on the degree of political freedom and the pursuit of justice. Yet it is not long ago that Tanzania was in a rut. It gained its independence from the British in 1963 led by the charismatic Julius Nyerere.

The economy did poorly for the best part of 25 years. Eventually Nyerere, leader of the one party state he had created, stepped down. Despite his mistakes he had melded Tanzania’s diverse tribes into one peaceful nation and had shown that a transition to new leadership could be done by the ballot — even if the ballot was restricted to party members. Successor presidents have moved Tanzania rapidly away from the socialist model. Private enterprise flourishes, privatisation is the norm and foreign investment is arriving at a steady rate..

There is a dark side to this new-found capitalism, income distribution is worsening and corruption is endemic. Yet here again Tanzania shows its effort to improve its management is working — anti-corruption policing is becoming more effective, the police better trained (and behaved) and the judiciary more experienced and probing. Besides, the Press is increasingly effective at unearthing scandals.

Tanzania is still not a full-blown democracy but the main opposition party is visibly growing. There is a national debate about policies. The country is peaceful. I return home and say to myself: “I have seen Africa’s future and know it works.”

2 Playing China and India against each other (Harsh V Pant in Khaleej Times) With the rise in the military capabilities of China and India, the two are increasingly rubbing against each other; China expands its presence in the Indian Ocean region and India makes its presence felt in East and Southeast Asia. In this context, Indian External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid recently suggested that India must accept “the new reality” of China’s presence in areas it considers exclusive, seeming acknowledgement that both the South Asian and Indian Ocean regions are rapidly being shaped by the Chinese presence.

China’s rising profile in South Asia and the Indian Ocean region isn’t news. What’s significant is the diminishing role of India and the rapidity with which New Delhi has ceded strategic space to Beijing in regions traditionally considered India’s periphery. This quiet assertion of China has allowed various smaller countries to play China off against India.

Most states in the region now use the China card to balance against India’s predominance. Forced to exist between two giant neighbours, the smaller states have responded with a careful balancing act. The recent spat between New Delhi and Male merely reflects the evolving ground realities in the Indian Ocean region.

3 Third of Britons can’t afford holiday (Heather Stewart in The Guardian) Almost 30% of people in Britain are unable to afford even a week's annual holiday, up from less than a quarter before the financial crisis, according to an analysis by the Office for National Statistics, which reveals the day-to-day struggle facing many families. More than a fifth of the population – 22.7%, or 14m people – were considered "at risk of poverty or social exclusion" in 2011, the latest year for which data is available.

This level has been largely unchanged since 2007 and compares to an EU average of 24.1% – though that includes countries such as Greece and Spain which are in deep financial and economic crisis. The proportion of the population in the UK defined as "at risk of poverty" has fallen since the depths of the recession, the report says, from 18.7% in 2008 to 16.2% in 2011 – but that is partly because the definition of the poverty line, which is calculated relative to average incomes, has declined as real wages across the economy have fallen.