Africa's plight is not as bad as the world thought, it is worse. More than 30 million people on the continent could be facing famine within months. In Ethiopia, the lengthening of dry spells and the shortening of rainy seasons have cast a long shadow of hunger. In southern Africa food shortages are compounded by pandemic levels of Aids. In Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe's misguided policies were designed to kill off the opposition, but have ended up starving a region. Meanwhile Congo, Angola, Sudan and the Ivory Coast are all caught between war and peace.