Bush recently pledged to double aid to Africa, and the upcoming G8 summit is proposing to 'lay blueprints for Africa' to 'make poverty history'. But as many leaders in the third world have already stated, free trade is what they want, not aid (you'd think they should invite some of them to the G8, but no). With countries like Congo, which has massive resources of casserite (tin, a metal without which the western world would not have cans, circuitboards, etc.), and yet because they have been exploited (by westerners and the greed of a few within Congo), the government has no money to control it's manufacturing and no money to pay it's soldiers, who in turn decide to make a profit by forcing miners to work at gunpoint and taking their earnings. Around a thousand civilians die every day. Read Channel 4's recent report: http://www.channel4.com/news/special-reports/special-reports-storypage.jsp?id=301
And we in the west continue to allow this massive injustice to go by.
A journey to Congo in 1890 was Joseph Conrad's inspiration to write the harrowing account of slave labour and human injustice, entitled 'Heart of Darkness'. More than a century on, nothing has changed. Why not?
"Try and lay an egg."