But by 1990, Somalia, which sits on the edge of the desert, was embroiled in civil war, there was drought, and soon the nation was dying. Somalia was too well armed to be pacified and too chaotic to be conquered. Even in a weakened state, Somalia still managed to bite off the fingers of the hands that tried to feed it. So the world, in a sense, abandoned Somalia. The people of Somalia are starving again but the news networks will not, or cannot, cover the wretchedness there.
Hopeless misery makes poor programming.
So Somalia starves in a back alley of the global village. Out of sight, out of mind. Many chaotic places in the Third World lie on the edges of deserts or near the equator. As the world becomes hotter, the populations of these places, whose resources are almost down to zero, become more desperate and irrational. Disputes that formerly were resolved now often flare into bloodshed.