IT has been pleasantly hot during the past few days. Hot enough to make headlines.

In the coming days, the weather will tail off. That will make headlines again. And all this in a summer period!

But we should be so lucky. Cast your mind back a couple of years and you'll recall pictures of suffering a pole apart from life in Britain.

The unseasonal weather which dumped weeks of torrential rain into Mozambique's rivers was the worst for decades.

Within days, the UNICEF organisation had asked Evening News readers to help. You responded with speed and concern - and raised almost £14,000 in short time.

Today, we're asking you to dig deep again, because a crippling combination of natural and man-made crises is driving more than six million children towards starvation across Southern Africa.

A staggering 12.8 million people in Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Malawi, Lesotho, Swaziland and Zambia are threatened with famine - a population more than twice the size of the West Midlands.

The difference between this crisis and the one in 2000 is that this one can be caught early.

If you decide to help, these are among the things your money will do: £25 will provide therapeutic feeding for 350 children; £10 can buy a relocation kit for a child orphaned by HIV/Aids; £175 could install a pump to give clean water to 250 people a day.

In short, today, you can do two things: Thank God you're only about to have a few dull days, and play a part in preventing clouds of a different kind from blighting the lives of millions.