Don't give up on hope. Sub Saharan Africa is a basket case. The UN prevents her from profiting from worthwhile endeavours. Africa is still fractured by race, ethnicity, warlords, poverty, lawlessness, religious turmoil and socialist nations. After WW2, when the UN was looking at how best to allocate resources to build the world, Asia looked the basket case with too many people and not enough resources, while Africa was ripe to join the developed world, with lots of natural resources and abundance of farmland which could make her a fruit basket. I'll ignore the North African nations in this analysis as their issues are different, more related to the issues of all Islamic nations around the world. Socialist policies in South Africa and Zimbabwe have been as successful as in Venezuela and Cuba. War torn Congo, Rwanda and Uganda owe some of their problems to international actors manipulating tribal schisms for personal gain. And yet along with with nations like Nigeria and Kenya there is hope. Not because of $trillions of aid money being diverted to war machines, but because through hard won law and order, local communities are working to improve their lot. Children are being educated, and some go to university. Middle classes are expanding. As nations like India internationalise, they create opportunities where they expand. The divisive issue of slavery still impacts on large swathes of Africa today, but a focus on it is counterproductive. There needs to be healing, but healing is best achieved with hope through the dignity of work. Aid alone will never compensate for the past.

Malcolm Turnbull takes selfies, and the pictures look for all the world as if USA and China are sharing a bad joke. Partisan Channel 7 are working very hard to hurt Pauline Hanson in Queensland. Queensland LNP provide strong, sensible policy, while ALP suggest harebrained AGW affirmations like spending over a $hundred million on Solar, but not achieving any result from the expenditure. The ALP are hoping for less plant food to be yielded. But Queensland don't have a Triffid problem. The ALP government have restricted political funding to the LNP, but have no restrictions on union slush funds going to them. That is what they can do in government.