africa: A bold proposal for poor African nations: Forget the debt

With AIDS pummeling sub-Saharan Africa and a famine threatening the lives of millions of people in the southern part of the continent, many development specialists are calling on donors to take the unusual step of cancelling the countries' staggering debt payments of $14.6 billion each year. But some analysts, doubting that will happen, have a more provocative idea: Why don't African countries simply stop paying?