Today's Business Week reports that a disagreement between the EU and South Africa is threatening the unity of the Southern African Customs Union, the world's oldest customs union. Last year several countries broke rank with South Africa, signing a trade agreement with the EU. It is feared that South Africa may use this as a reason to disband the union entirely.

If South Africa does break ranks with other participating countries including Botswana, Namibia, Swaziland and Lesotho, tariffs protecting Namibian beer makers from European beer would not apply to countries like South Africa. The result would be the inability of Southern African countries to effectively protect certain industries (and in this case a significant loss to the global beer supply as well as domestic economies).

Today the Economist posted a briefing on the 2008 Freedom of the World report published by the Heritage Foundation and the Wall Street Journal, concluding that in recent years "African countries have made negligible progress liberalising their economies."

For the most part, although not without exception, the Heritage Foundation’s correlation between incomes per head and economic freedom holds good. Seven of the ten economically most free African economies (Mauritius, Botswana, South Africa, Namibia, Tunisia, Swaziland and Cape Verde) are, in fact, middle-income states. Uganda, Madagascar and Kenya, however, are very low-income countries.