President Blaise Compaoré has a remarkable ability to cause tremendous trouble for his neighbours and still come up smelling of roses. Despite all his years of support for Liberian President Charles Taylor, the Liberian opposition turned out in force for talks in Ouagadougou last month. On the domestic front, the opposition has ended its political boycott and drastically reduced the ruling party's majority in parliament. With the crisis sparked by the killing of journalist Norbert Zongo in 1998 much calmed, Compaoré can start preparing to run for a third term in 2005.
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