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Thursday, May 30, 2002

From Yahoo's Oddly Enough news items:

"It is just not acceptable that Ethiopia, where 62 percent of adults cannot read, where one million children are orphans, is paying $100 million a year to us."

-- Irish rock star BONO, in a speech to the African Development Bank's annual conference urging rich nations to increase aid to Africa and forgive past debuts.


I wonder if people like Bono have really thought about why it is that some of these countries languish in poverty despite continually receiving hundreds of billions of dollars in international aid. The structure of the impoverished country's government certainly plays a significant role. But dare we suggest that culture is a big root reason for why these countries are the way they are? As un-PC as it is, I would.

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