We didn't have colony's in Africa. :doh:
The Belgian's however........

http://www.cyberallies.com/horsemen.jpg

Tough to fight creatures like this...

Revelation 6
[1] And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see.
[2] And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer.
[3] And when he had opened the second seal, I heard the second beast say, Come and see.
[4] And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword.
[5] And when he had opened the third seal, I heard the third beast say, Come and see. And I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand.
[6] And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine.
[7] And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see.
[8] And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.

Foreign aid in our developed countries many times is in fact just a credit to shop in our business...it's not as much an aid to third world as an aid to our local industry & agriculture in order to help them sell some products that would otherwise have little demand... :hmm: Our governments are not as generous as you would think, they just do it for the benefits of our economy, not for theirs. Otherwise they would take other actions.

@Drebbel: Yes I agree that it is a human tragedy, but maybe that mother should have thought twice before having a child?

It is unacceptable that people living in refugees camps still keep having 5-6 childs per woman. Giving birth to children just to make them starve is a crime in my opinion, it is totally against a responsable use of our ability to procreate.

We might be responsable for decolonization to a certain extent, but not for the explosive and incontrolled growth of population in the third world. If they had been having only 2 sons per couple in the last 50 years, they would not live today in such terrible conditions! :shifty: Think about India....they are MAD, 1000 million+ and growing....their land will not resist such a overpopulation, and what then? Then they will demand our aid to solve a problem they are entirely responsable for.

Blimey! From the comments above, one would think that our society is the model of good money management. We talk about foreign government corruption and waste, but our entire Western society is built on, and sustained by, a virtual pandemic of wasteful spending.

Tell me this: what good will cutting foreign aid do? It's not like any of our countries give all that much in foreign aid anyway. What are we going to use the paltry sum we save for? What great humanitarian programs would that money fund here at home? Or are you just thinking that the pennies you'll save every year from it will come in handy to buy an extra cheap Bic ballpoint pen, or perhaps an extra chocolate treat you can buy at the candy store at Christmas time? 'Cos that's about what it amounts to - an extra few cents in your pocket at the end of the year. Maybe it doesn't help much abroad, but I'm sure it saves some lives even if there's vast corruption involved. At home, all that money will do is go into our vast consumer culture. We'll gain an extra pound in weight and spend dollars more at the gym working it off. We will kill more people at home by keeping the cash (through overweight-induced health problems) than the lives we save abroad by sending it there.

So what good will it do in your pocket? I mean look at me - 3rd World government corruption pales in comparison to the wasteful spending I do on my weekly trip to the bookstore. Last week I bought two magazines I still haven't read and a DVD I haven't even watched yet. I just tend to think that, in our "consumption for consumption's sake" society, pouring money down the foreign aid toilet is probably more useful than buying stuff with it at home. So I'm for sending the money abroad, at least until we learn how to spend it wisely at home.

That's a very good point I think.

Just to clarify my own position though, I didn't imply anything about supporting Western consumer tendencies. I'm pretty shocked at the amount of senseless spending people do around here sometimes; perhaps its my own upbringing in tough conditions.

A lot of people from the middle class really don't have an appreciation of poverty. However I don't think sending aid really helps them understand, either.

Myself, again, I'm with the idea of aid to individuals rather than societies first and foremost.

ive gone up in the world

i used to live with my mum and stepdad and little sister in a 3 bedroom councill house that was left over from WW2 (prefabricated house), i was bought up in a very rough area and had to fight nearly all the time.


id be stupid to say i won every fight i got into but i didnt i lost alot but won alot so drew even. my family was living on state benifits for a short while before my stepdad went back to work and that was the poorest ive been.

£15 each for the chldren (family allowence)
£53 dole money for stepdad
£40 other benefits

total: £123 per week to live on

not alot but you had to make do.

i now live with my real dad and my stepdad has moved away and my mum split up with him, but now i live where i do ive gone up to middle class, my nan owns her own home my dad has a good adequately paid job.

im fortuanate but i do know what its like to be poor ive been there and yes you can work yourself out of it as them TV adverts say

Your "consumist" actions have in fact helped some families who earn a wage thanks to the DVD and magazine industry in your country, and the taxes the state has got in the way have helped building hospitals and paying medics in your country. Is that exactly senseless spending? Or a friendly way to make people depart with their extra bucket in something that helps the richness of the country to improve?

When we say "corruption" are we including state slavery? That is, Dictators from poor African countries enslaving their population by being the only source of food/money supported by foreign aid?

It would be quite selfish to finance that kind of activity simply because you don't want magazine or DVD stores to make a profit, and instead allow for some pesky Dictator to provide a miserable life to millions, while believing you are actually "helping", who said they need money?

Africa is rich, much richer than Europe for instance on natural resources, they don't need your money, there are a few succesfull examples in Africa where money was not involved at all, though politicians usually only think of it as it is much easier to simply hand them cash with a "There you go, make good use of it, don't spend it all in one go!" mentality than actually offering a helping hand, and that's what's needed.

The people in a small village in Nigeria used to survive off the fruits that from time to time fall on the ground from trees or fishing only the necessary fish to kill their hunger on that day with small canoes, they were miserable.

Then, a small European expedition decided to travel to that village and teach them the basic concepts of agriculture and cooperation, if they continue to savage fruits randomly and only when they're hungry they'll never know the day of tomorrow since someone can get the fruits before them, this kind of competition will eventually leave someone without any fruits at all for the day, especially if someone decides to getsas much as he can carry.

But what if everybody had a tree in their backyard? What if you had an entire field of trees? Not only would you have enough to survive but you could provide food for others too, especially those who live further away from any source of fruits, those could travel to the village market and trade either using currency or even directly other goods.

It's the same with the fishing, if everybody catch one or two fish for themselves they'll have enough to eat alright, but what about those who live far from the coast and are not willing to kill their goats for meat since they rather sell the milk? Why catch one or two fish if there are so many fish the region is considered "under"-explored? So the Europeans taught them cooperation, get rid of the small canoes, you need a net large enough to catch a bunch of fish, and to operate this net you need more than one fisherman, so a bunch of fisherman join together, launch a big net and catch a ton of fish they will then share to eat, store and sell, they only need electricity to produce ice and/or refrigerate the fish, not money or food, what makes you believe the local corrupt politician will assist building a refrigerated storage?

Why should all this people rely on sacks of rice provided by the local politician through foreign aid? So that these people continue to depend on the politician and continue to vote him on office if and everytime they get to vote? Why should this region continue under-developed and supported by foreign money hand-outs if there is so much need for food throughout Africa and they could expand and export food to all these regions?

There is a similar case in Brazil, on a poor coastal region, where there aren't even fishing quotas, so huge is the amount of fish on the ocean, fisherman originally used primitive little row boats, then someone had a great idea and started using a sail boat, all fisherman copied the idea as the sail boats are obviously larger, carried a bigger net and could bring home more fish, but why are they using row/sail boats if everywhere else the trend is to use Jet/Engine vessels which are even larger?! Because they have no money to buy the engines nor the bigger ships, the little profit they make was usually spent to improve their households and not their source of profit, they don't teach business management in public schools, so how should they know it would be wiser to invest on their boat instead of buying a 14' TV? The smarter fisherman who invested on better boats now have a huge advantage, all the others need is one mere engine to fit on their boats, what does the local government do?

Creates a money hand-out program, with no goal, no exit, it's a simple register and get cash, instead of register, read the leaflet and get cash untill you start making X profit then you're on your own again.

Result? Everybody takes advantage of it, of course, but the fisherman who didn't invested on their boats in the first place, and received no hint to do so, didn't bought an engine again, they were ignorant before, why having some money in their hands would make them any smarter? Instead, they continued to improve their household and bought more consumer goods and now they have to pay for it so the money from the program is being used to finance a 21' TV.

So if someone doesn't want to buy a new DVD or a magazine, instead of ruining the life of so many people and supporting corrupt politicians in power, I can give you the telephone number to the fisherman associations of these poor regions and you can contact them to arrange the donation of an engine, they can then raffle it, they don't need your money nor your food, which is instead used by politicians to buy the votes of the people, we discovered even national food hand-out programs were being announced by the local politicians as their OWN doing to get them votes!

I retract my previous statement, do not cut foreign aid, donate this:
http://www.shallowwaterangler.com/tv...15_Optimax.jpg
Hurry up as more international fishing boats continue to sneak into our waters to steal our fish before our thinly-spread navy can kick them out again.

All governments have some level of corruption.

So, who do we trust? Our own governments to spend on citizens at home, or the government who spends the money we send them?

:hmm: :hmm: :damn: :damn:

:) One basic thing that most people seem to agree on is there is no accountability for all the foreign aid given. Until there is complete financil accountability, foreign aid should be stopped. Otherwise WE continue the cycle. Anotherwards if you break the chain in the cycle that type of habit (abuse of foriegn aid) by foreign governments stops.

I have a feeling that the abuse of foreign aid funds is not just limited to governments. What about the organisations like Care, World Vision, etc., etc., etc.???????? I really wonder if every penny gets to the people who need it through these organisations?????

I wonder how many weapons have been bought using foreign aid or aid supplied through an private agency????????