The chairman of the African Union (AU) has called on the international community to "trust" Africa's leaders to solve the continent's many crises. In an upbeat message, Alpha Oumar Konare said that despite enormous problems, Africa's future was not all doom and gloom. "The situation of our continent is not in itself a fatality," Konare told African foreign ministers meeting in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, ahead of a three-day AU summit intended to get African leaders to fulfil pledges made towards resolving the many problems facing the world’s poorest continent.