Posted on 09/21/2004 11:06:36 AM PDT by dead
More than 100 countries have endorsed a campaign to raise an additional $US50 billion ($71 billion) a year in development aid to combat global hunger, but the United States has poured cold water on the project.
"The greatest scandal is not that hunger exists but that it persists, even when we have the means to eliminate it. It is time to take action," read a declaration signed by 110 nations and adopted at the close of a summit on hunger on Monday.
It urged governments to consider a report for the conference, setting out a series of options for raising the extra money.
These included a global tax on financial transactions, a tax on the sale of heavy arms, an international borrowing facility and a credit cards scheme that would direct a small percentage of transaction charges to the cause.
President Jacques Chirac of France said the report set out technically realistic and economically rational solutions.
However, the leader of the US delegation, the Agriculture Secretary, Ann Veneman, dismissed it. "Economic growth is the long-term solution to hunger and poverty," she told the meeting.
"The report should give more attention to practical steps to sustained growth. There is too much emphasis on schemes such as global taxes to raise external resources. Global taxes are inherently undemocratic. Implementation is impossible."
The US President, George Bush, did not attend the summit although he is due to address the General Assembly today.
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil, who organised the summit, said after the meeting that Washington had made it clear earlier that it would not participate.
Mr Chirac predicted the US position could change after the November 2 presidential elections. "Let's see when things settle down what their position will be," he said. "However strong the Americans may be, you cannot in the long run emerge victorious by opposing an idea that is backed by 100 countries and which will probably be approved by 150, creating a new political situation."
More than a billion people around the world live in extreme poverty, surviving on less than $US1 a day. They include 300 million in sub-Saharan Africa.
At a summit four years ago, United Nations members pledged to halve the number of people in deep poverty by 2015.
"Right now, however, we are falling short," said the UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan.
Reuters
I really, Really, REALLY hate the UN!
You nailed it. But corrupt UN officials is kind of redundant, eh?
Good job. This is not about feeding the hungry, it's about feeding those hungry for U.N. supremacy and the downfall of the west, specifically America. The rest of the world will stop at nothing to chip away at our sovereignty. Heck, our own dems go willingly.
Clearly Mr. Chirac did not see the polling from Ohio today...
Bush should have said, "Hey, Chirac, wha'dya do with the rest of the billions we already gave ya? Spend that!"
We had a revolution over 'taxation without representation'.
And we'll do it again. Against the U.N.
Great idea!.
I will write the UN and remind them that, if they recover all the money stolen by the oil-for-food program, by the UN, their hangers-on and the corrupt scam artists they dealt with, it should cover most of the $70 billion they so adamantly are trying to extort from us.
So why don't you guys do something about the starving? Americans gives billions to the starving around the world every year, how about France? Once you tax American citizens will you put the money with the oil for food program? Oh sorry you lost that scam didn't you, is this to replace it?
If current economic trends continue, France will be eligible to receive payments under this program by 2020.
Here Ithought the one world govt was a rumor, truly if the UN is given taxing authority the world would be doomed.
If you want to end hunger, abolish socialism.
Red
Kofi's bank checking account must be running a little low.
President Kerry will trip over himself to get to the table to sign a global UN tax.
In other words, they'll get Kerry to ignore the Constitution, and sell the American people out. Yep. That sounds exactly like what Kerry would do. He'd turn on the American people in a heart beat if he thought it would make him more important in the world. Why, an opportunist like Kerry may even see visions of the U.N. presidency!
If everyone on this thread chipped in a penny, we could buy a bullet for Mugabe and solve starvation in Zimbabwe.
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