World's most corrupt nations

Forbes had an article titled World's most corrupt countries and to no one's surprise 90% of the corrupt countries are in Africa, with the remaining 10% in Asia and Latin America.

Most of Africa is below poverty line, battling civil war, ethnic hatred, public massacre and rape. Not a single day passes by without thousands being killed mercilessly or children being raped and served as sex slaves.

What could be the root cause for all this : Abundant availability of rich natural resources.
For instance the Democratic Republic of Congo has the largest reserve of the mineral Coltan. What's so special about Coltan ? Its one of the main components of every cellphone, mainly used in heat resistant capacitors. In essence, without Coltan we wouldn't be seeing today's palm sized cellphones with all the 'cool' features. Coltan is mined by hand and the price is about $100 per KG.
Nigeria as every one knows has some of the world's largest oil reserves.
Sudan is also rich in Oil and Exxon-Mobil has some of its major refineries in Sudan.
Apart from these major resources, there are abundant natural forests, rich deposits of gold etc.

So inspite of all these natural resources, 90% of Africa lives under poverty and probably all the world's known maladies and diseases thrive here. Why ? Because of 'Highly organized and systematic exploitation'. The same concept used by British in India for nearly 300 years. The Coltan mines in Congo produce nearly as much as 400 - 500 million $ a year. Most of this money goes into the hands of smugglers and war lords who systematically take coltan out of Africa and into every cellphone manufacturer's plants.
In Sudan, even though Exxon Mobil has its refinery and miles and miles of pipeline pipeline local employment has got no boost. People still struggle for three meals a day.

How do the war lords get automatic weapons in bulk ? Surely they don't just pray for weapons and there it drops from the sky. I was having a chat with a Nigerian native a few weeks back and he mentioned of a UN plane carrying automatic weapons in Red Cross boxes that was intercepted by some rebel leaders.

South Asia is also in a similar situation ( but for India ). Countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh and Burma have been terrorist havens for decades and have some of the poorest economies. These countries are willing to sacrifice their economies for reasons as immature as 'jihad'. Can't they see the bigger picture ? or are they too reluctant to open their eyes ?

Personally, I 'feel' horribly sad for the current state of Africa and south Asia. I don't even have a clue what it would take for these countries to realize their worth and spring back to a 'good' economy. For sure, the 'civilized' world knows how to keep corruption alive in these regions and until someone realizes this and fights, there would be no end and Africa would still be called a 'Dark continent'. What a transition it has been over a period of time? The once 'cradles of human civilization' ( as we read in school ) are today the cradles of poverty and corruption.

Am posting a picture after a really long time. I had not taken a good one in ages and though this pic cannot be classified as 'good' I liked the subject a lot. Its a song sparrow and as we were looking for eagles and kinglets in Ridgefield National Wildlife refuge on a rainy day this bird just happened to be perched about 3 or 4 ft in front of us. These birds seemed to be quite friendly to humans and I was so thrilled to take this shot.