If only there were more leaders like John Howard

You have to admire John Howard for his leadership and his straight talking. Not one to mince his words, he described Robert Mugabe as a 'grubby dictator' after banning the Australian cricket team from touring Zimbabwe.

Meanwhile, Zimbabwe’s Environment and Tourism Minister has just been appointed chair of the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development, after a sizeable number of votes from African and Latin American countries. Bizarre, when you consider Zimbabwe's appalling record on sustainable development. You have to ask two questions:

1. How can anyone take the UN Seriously?
2. How is giving aid to Africa going to help when (to borrow the Times words) it has become little more than an unregenerate dictators’ club?