Which brings us on to the Sahara. A new study has shown that sulphur dioxide levels over Europe have led to diminished rainfall over Africa. The US department of the environment has produced results showing the reality of global warming, to the apparent embarrassment of the Bush government which tore up the Kyoto agreement. Ethiopia's trade route to the Red Sea has been disrupted by tribal fighting over ever-diminishing grazing lands. Right across Africa, starving peasants are migrating to shanty towns on the fringes of the cities, while urban sprawl is fast eating up productive agricultural land in the Nile Valley.
Perhaps the message coming out of all this is that our leaders, trained in the twentieth century to adopt the practices of the nineteenth century, don't know how to manage the 21st century global village? We can but hope desperately hungry Africans don't learn that the only way to get the attention of the first world - and of their own - leaders is to fly aeroplanes into skyscrapers.
Article reprinted, courtesy of MBendi, Africa's leading business website and one of the world's top mining, energy and international trade websites:
http://www.mbendi.co.za
Perhaps the message coming out of all this is that our leaders, trained in the twentieth century to adopt the practices of the nineteenth century, don't know how to manage the 21st century global village? We can but hope desperately hungry Africans don't learn that the only way to get the attention of the first world - and of their own - leaders is to fly aeroplanes into skyscrapers.
Article reprinted, courtesy of MBendi, Africa's leading business website and one of the world's top mining, energy and international trade websites:
http://www.mbendi.co.za