Channel4.com - News - special report: Niger 'worse than Darfur'

The charity Save the Children has told Channel 4 News that the situation in Niger is worse than crisis in Darfur.

Drought and locusts have created a desperate famine in Niger. The warning comes as The Disasters Emergency Committee is calling on the public to help tackle the dire food shortages.

Telephone and on-line donations can be made from today - while a television and radio campaign will follow next week. They say the world has been too slow to recognise this crisis.

Channel 4 News spoke to Save the children's spokesperson Amanda Weisbaum. She was asked if charities like hers share some of the responsibility for not warning the world early enough?

Click here to watch the interview.

For more news see Niger Watch.
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We must all sneer and scoff at the corrupt, cruel jackasses of Africa

An email for Sudan Watch yesterday contained an opinion piece on Africa by Matthew Parris at Times Online 2 July 2005.

It is interesting to note what Thabo Mbeki’s brother, Moeletsi Mbeki, said about windmills - and this excerpt from the piece:

Peasants must become freehold owners of their land, he said, and I agree. This nascent class of producers must be empowered to make their work worthwhile and their voices heard. But all across the continent, traditional tribal values, Western-style collectivist ideologies and the greed of political elites have joined in a murderous embrace to stop this.