UN postpones Rome food summit

The director general of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has proposed that a World Food Summit originally scheduled…

The director general of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has proposed that a World Food Summit originally scheduled for next month should be postponed until June 2002, the Rome-based body said today.

The planned delay was a response to fears for the safety of the numerous heads of states expected to attend the meeting in the wake of the US-led attack on Afghanistan.

FAO's chief spokesman, Mr Nick Parsons, said director general Mr Jacques Diouf was writing to the 49 members of the FAO council to propose the postponement of the event, due to take place in Rome from November 5-9, until June.

The council looks certain to back Mr Diouf's call.

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The meeting, called World Food Summit - five years later, aims to raise both the political will and the financial resources to achieve a goal set in 1996 to halve the number of hungry people - still more than 800 million - by 2015.