People leaving last week-end's Live8 charity concert in elated mood in Johannesburg were greeted with an ugly sight. A newspaper distributed by Zimbabwean émigrés featured a front-page photograph of a severely burned three-year-old girl who fell into a kitchen fire after stumbling over debris created by President Robert Mugabe's urban-clearance programme.

With a United Nations special envoy investigating the evictions under Operation Murambatsvina ("throw out the trash"), Zimbabwe promises to cast a pall over the G8 summit.