Why Africa stays poor: and why it doesnt have to - cover story.

The images are so familiar that we have become all but inured to them: starving African children outlined against a broad expense of empty sky; ragged impoverished families huddled together on a stony steppe. They could be Biafrans in 1968 Sahelians in 1973 or Ethiopians in 1985. The most recent pictures are from Somalia a barren stretch of East African coastland that juts into the Indian Ocean. Once a consolation prize in the Cold War (the real trophy in the Horn was Ethiopia a richer and more populous nation) Somalia has since disintegrated into fiefdoms of grizzled warlords armed with Kalashnikovs and AK-47s. Now 2000 Somalis die every day from hunger and its attendant diseases and reports from elsewhere in Africa suggest that Somalia is only the beginning; according to the United Nations 20 million to 60 million people are at risk of starvation throughout the eastern and southern parts of the continent. (authors)