At home, since Gabon was his, he cosseted it one moment and ravaged it the next.

And in countries ravaged by violence -- from Haiti to Congo to East Timor -- we will work with the U.N. and other partners to support an enduring peace.

The bald, chemo-ravaged head - the public got used to that pretty quickly, just as we once got used to thinking of her as "the face of racism" or "the laughable image of illiteracy".

That may already be happening in Canada, where recent warm winters have unleashed a plague of bark beetles, and in Australia, whose forests have been devastated by drought and forest fires.

Despite the ravages of AIDS and a plethora of other diseases Africa' s populations continue to outstrip the carry capacity of the continental resource base.