Palermo - The UN Secretary General, Mr Kofi Annan, opened a high-level conference on fighting the international mafia yesterday with a call on world leaders to sign up to the first convention which aims to crush organised crime.
The conference was being held in Palermo, Sicily, a onetime hotbed of mafia violence, in tribute to the city's fight against organised crime.
Mr Annan called the UN convention "a milestone in the struggle for the rule of law." Governments must "answer a global challenge with a global response," he told delegates from 154 countries out of more than 180 represented in the world body.