By Prof. Alemayehu G. Mariam / April 3, 2009
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown wants the G-20 (or Group of Twenty Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors of the world’s largest economies) to help cash-strapped African countries manage their balance of payments (money going from one country to all others) as their incomes from foreign investments and aid, remittances and commodities prices vanish in with the collapsing global economy. In mid-March, Brown invited a number of African leaders to meet with him in anticipation of the scheduled G-20 meeting in London on April 2. The hype preceding the G-20 meeting was full of hectoring moralism by the designated panhandler-for-Africa, the dictator in Ethiopia:
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