ZIMBABWE: CHRISTOPHER Wardell (HAS, July 1) grumbles about 59 Zimbabweans seeking asylum in Britain, and suggests they should be sent to South Africa. Perhaps he doesn't know that South Africa is already trying to cope with over two million refugees from Zimbabwe.

George Sowerby (HAS, July 1) suggests there should be no debt relief for Africa on account of the appalling behaviour of Robert Mugabe. It is most unlikely that the G8 leaders will agree to debt cancellation for Zimbabwe, despite the plight of its people, but it is always possible to bypass governments and get aid directly to where it is needed through NGOs.

Zimbabwe is just one of over 50 countries in a vast continent, each with different strengths and problems. In many cases, debts were run up by tyrants who have now gone. Why should the people who suffered under those tyrants, and danced in the streets when they departed, suffer the burden of those debts?

Author Robert Guest (Echo, July 1) is right to say that Africa's problems must ultimately be solved by Africans, but there is much that rich nations can do to assist, or at least cease obstructing, the development of prosperous democracies in Africa. - Pete Winstanley, Durham.

THE MONARCHY

CONTRARY to recent reports in the press, the monarchy does not give the British people good value for money. Granted, the income from the Crown Estate (about £150m in 2004) is much larger than the annual Civil List payment, but society is on to a loser by retaining a political culture centred around "Her Majesty's Government".

Britons don't realise the colossal disparity between sums grossed by the Crown Estate and to the true direct annual cost of the monarchical state.

Each year the hard-working taxpayers of this country are given the burden of paying over £16bn to fund the Queen's continuity of governance (including the cost of the civil service and the judiciary).

Meanwhile, many European countries are being run on a shoestring but manage to provide a top level of public service. The monarchy is an extravagance we can surely not afford. I think Britain is capable of producing a more cost-effective system than monarchy. - Aled Jones, Bridlington.

WELL DONE

I think pensioner Lena Morrison should be allowed to work until she reaches her 70th year (HAS, July 6). The 68-year-old dinner nanny from Chilton has given 28 years service to her job and has done it well.

She enjoys her work and is perfectly capable. Well done, Lena. - N Brigham, Willington.

OF course Lena Morrison should be allowed to carry on working as a dinner lady. What has your biological age got to do with your ability to work hard?

Many people forced to retire at the age of 60 or 65 go on and do voluntary work for decades and many work harder at voluntary work than the job they have been told that they are too old to do. - E Reynolds, Wheatley Hill.

RECYCLING

ONCE again we have this New Labour government grasping the 'green' umbrella and telling everyone they must recycle more to protect the environment and yet they continue to allow the national postal service, Royal Mail, to be the biggest distributor of non-recyclable material in the country.

At the end of any week of the year you can have collected half a carrier bag of non-recyclable rubbish. The brown stuck down envelope without any address, the letter addressed to the occupier, the glossy folded over A4 booklet all destined for the landfill site because the envelopes use glue on the fold down flaps and the glossy paper can't be used by the recycling companies - and all of it unsolicited by the householder.

At the same time all this is going on, what you have put out to be recycled is first inspected before being taken away. If you haven't washed clean all tins and glass jars and removed the glued on label, they are left with a note telling you that they only collect clean tins and jars without those with glued on glossy labels.

Councils crow on about what is recycled and how the recycling company donates £1 to charity for every ton of recyclable material collected. Well for Joe Public doing all the work for them for free, I don't think £1 to charity is a very good return. And if the recycling companies employed more people to sort the collected rubbish instead of choosing what they are prepared to take away, more would be recycled and not put into bins to go into landfill sites. - Peter Dolan, Newton Aycliffe.

EUROPEAN UNION

THERE is need to have a positive approach to issues of the European Union that comes from a depth of understanding. The problem is the lack of opportunities to gain the level of understanding that enables people to make balanced judgements. All too often single issues come to us through the media that are distorted in order to make personal cases. We are too ready to make judgements about this or that country without understanding their position.

The current debate over the level of the Common Agricultural Policy payments made to France in particular is a case in point. French agriculture is less efficient than in most other EU countries due mainly to their inheritance laws that tend to fragment property ownership.

A key element is that on the death of a person with one child, one half of the property goes to the child; two thirds is shared equally where there are two children; and three quarters if there are three or more children. There is some pressure to get the laws changed. It is a political nettle that only the French can grasp and it takes time to be brought about.

Those who argue that the EU has had its time need to reflect that, as situations change, new problems common to us all appear. Climate change, energy supplies and relations with the developing world will create problems that are just round the corner. The EU will have at least as great a task as it has had in the past in dealing with these and other problems. - Bill Morehead, Darlington.

REGIONAL ASSEMBLY

CHRIS Foote-Wood's letter (HAS, July 6) is the most astonishing piece of blind misrepresentation imaginable.

Mr Foote-Wood and his colleagues on the North East Regional Assembly simply do not understand what a 78 per cent No to regional government really means.

No matter how well intentioned he and his colleagues are regarding the welfare of the North-East, the electorate do not want local politicians elevated beyond the role to which they were elected within their local authority.

As a director of the North East No Campaign, I heard this over and over again at more than 50 meetings throughout the region.

There is more than enough elected representation, Parliamentary and otherwise, to promote the needs of the North-East. The regional assemblies installed in all UK regions were simply established for political reasons. After the November vote they have no legitimate right to exist. Can Mr Foote-Wood and his friends not grasp this fact?

The inescapable fact is that the assembly is a talking shop with a minority of the members doing the talking, and all at the expense of the taxpayers of the North-East's 25 councils. - Colin Moran, former director North East No Campaign), Sunderland.