John Vidal

The East Timorese Foreign Minister, Jose Luis Guterres, became the last of 109 heads of state and 80 senior politicians to stand before the world on Wednesday and mourn for five minutes that humanity was in bad shape and that Something Had to Be Done.

United States Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill and rock singer Bono this week arrived in Addis Ababa on the last leg of their 11-day tour of four sub-Saharan African countries. They had already seen some of the best and worst of the continent.

THE village of Gumbi is semi-deserted, its people in rags and its larders bare. In the past few months there have been 17 deaths from hunger here. This should be harvest time, with the maize full in the fields, but the crops have either failed or been eaten unripe.