A blistering attack on Live 8 has been made by Moeletsi Mbeki, Deputy Chairman of South Africa's Institute of African Affairs, and brother of South Afica's president.
He has warned Bob Geldof of "a danger that far from combating poverty you are making things worse. You do not understand the core problem, you must treat the disease not the symptoms.
That disease is the shocking lack of accountabllty afforded toward the African people by those who rule them.
The truth of Western aid is that for every pound, dollar, or euro, that finds its way to the needy, another is propping up corrupt governments such as Mugabe's in Zimbabwe"
Perhaps the estimated over £250 billion which has been given to that benighted Country in the last 50 years would have been better and more effectively spent to help the needy had Western administrators been appointed to ensure its equitable distrubution?
The situation could in any event herdly be worse than at present and the probability is that it wouls be vastly better so far as those in need are concerned.
