Fair enough John Gray - you didn't say don't give, and I'm sure you will give. But it was that phrase "these countries" that got to me. It's like when someone says "these people." Everyone's got a particular history, and so has every country.

Mozambique was devastated for years by the occupying Portuguese, and that meant one drawn out "Civil War".

Then when the Portuguese pulled out, the old South African regime moved in, running a vicious "rebellion" with mercenaries and all, designed to destabilise the new government. And that meant another even more vicious and protracted "Civil War."

One President of Mozambique was murdered by the South Africans. (His widow is now Nelson Mandela's wife.) The country is filled with anti-personnel weapons.

I'm sure the Mozambican authorities have all kinds of things wrong with them, like the authorities in most countries. I've never heard anything to suggest that, given the circumstances, they are any worse than their opposite numbers on England or Australia. But they've had a cruel deal in Mozambique, mostly imposed from outside, so far as I can see. And none of it was down to the people who are struggling to stay alive right now.