Africa/Global: Making poverty history and the history of poverty

The "poor are not poor because they are lazy or their governments are corrupt". They are poor because their wealth has been appropriated and wealth creating capacity destroyed, argues this commentary on www.zmag.org "The riches accumulated by Europe were based on riches appropriated from Asia, Africa and Latin America. It was the violent take over of Third World resources and Third World markets that created wealth in the North - but it simultaneously created poverty in the South." The article concludes that "ending poverty is more a matter of taking less than giving an insignificant amount more. Making poverty history needs getting the history of poverty right."