Madam, - The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, in its latest yearbook, informs us that €886 billion was spent on armaments worldwide in 2005. This was an increase on previous years with Saudi Arabia, an ally of the US, for example, increasing its spending by €3.6 billion to €20 billion.
That kind of corruption - for devoting human resources to the mechanised killing of other humans surely is corruption - puts corruption in Africa into some sort of perspective.
Perhaps if we seriously confronted arms spending we could do something about uneven development in the world - or is that too rational for our generation? - Yours, etc,
SEAMUS BLAKE, Youghal, Co Cork.