CHINA: Hunger was the "worst of all weapons of mass destruction" and claimed millions of victims each year, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil said to loud applause at the Shanghai Conference on Poverty Reduction yesterday.
In an impassioned address, the Latin American leader launched a thinly-veiled attack on the EU and the US when he condemned "scandalous" agriculture subsidies in developed countries which meant more money was spent on cows than on people.
"Overcoming poverty de- mands much more than emergency measures and handouts although these are both important," he told more than 1,000 delegates attending the three-day conference, which is jointly hosted by the Chinese government and the World Bank.
Free and balanced international trade was necessary for the distribution of wealth, Mr Lula said. "That goal, however, depends on putting an end to the scandalous subsidies that many developed countries provide for their own agricultural production and exports, thereby generating serious distortions and asymmetries in the world economy.
"We cannot allow cows in some developed countries to receive over two dollars in subsidies every day, while half of the people in the world must survive on even less than that."
Last January he had issued a joint declaration in Geneva with President Jacques Chirac of France, President Ricardo Lagos of Chile and the UN Secretary General, Mr Kofi Annan, calling for "a global alliance" to overcome hunger and poverty. World leaders were being invited to a meeting in New York to discuss the issue on September 20th.
"The international agenda has focused excessively on security issues. We must rebalance the international agenda to pay more attention to social issues. Hunger is actually the worst of all weapons of mass destruction, claiming millions of victims every year.
"Fighting hunger and poverty and promoting development are the truly sustainable ways to achieve world peace," he said.
Welcoming the delegates to the conference, the Chinese Prime Minister, Mr Wen Jiabao, said progress in world poverty reduction had fallen short of expectations. This was closely related to the "unfair and irrational international political and economic order", he said.
"The vast number of developing countries, in particular, should be able to share the fruits of prosperity from global development in a fair and equitable way."
There should be greater aid for developing countries and trade protectionism should be rolled back. "In this international family, the rich have a moral obligation to help the poor, which serves the need for the common development of mankind," he said.
The Prime Minister of Bangladesh, Mrs Khaleda Zia, called for "a new global financial arrangement" to ensure fair play, justice and compassion for the poor.