£23 MILLION AND A £1 A DAY

We live in society full of inequalities. We see people starving and kids dying from lack of clean water, but surely the most hardhearted of us must scream at this news item when we realise that many members of the human race must survive on less than a £1 a day. "This is a bauble that even a banker with an intact bonus would struggle to buy - the 507.5 carat, flawless white-coloured Cullinan Heritage Diamond which was sold to a Chinese buyer yesterday for $35.3 million (£23 million)... The sale to Chow Tai Fok Jewellery in Hong Kong highlights the growing importance of China in the global diamond market." (Times, 27 February) It also highlights the madness of a society that allows some useless bastard in China to consume the equivalent in wealth of millions of kids staying alive. Capitalism sucks! RD