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
A power to tax something is the power to destroy something. The UN want's to tax the whole world.
Screw them.
How about the Debate commision?
Bush's web site?
LOL. Use it, and blog it!
Thes people should sell some of their oil stocks and feed the children.
Looks like 166 signed with 189 ratified.
Why runners make lousy communists. In a word, individuality. It's the one characteristic all runners, as different as they are, seem to share . . . Stick with it. Push yourself. Keep running. And you'll never lose that wonderful sense of individuality you now enjoy. Right, comrade?
- Advertisement for Running Shoes at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. Quoted in: Guardian (London, 29 Dec. 1984).
I'll see if I can find it. This would be an excellent debate question.
"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."
Four words you slimy little disgusting frog.
Come and take it. I'll pay a global tax after France is
obliterated off the face of the Earth and you are rotting in Parisian Hell.
That world tax could so easily spread.
I bet the United States would be set to pay the bulk of this.
Most of all, the UN is a corrupt body and at least half of the money raised would probably go to the people running the UN for self wealth.
............................................ "Will Work for Kickbacks"
That's exactly the substance of GWB's speech to the U.N.
Dictators and oppressors, tyrants and extremists, will be held accountable for violations of the highest ideals of our Declaration of Independence and that of the UN's list of Universal Human Rights.
The U.N. and the world hasn't absorbed that substance or maybe they are too narcissistic and egotistical to recognize what is right in front of them.
The only dissent was one guy who noted rather sheepishly that "the UN may not be the best group to tackle this, considering their recent problems." He was chastised for believing the "repuke" spin on the UN.
And another guy commented on how saving children from starvation would mean that the world would suck for those of us who aren't starving. His point was that the whole world would have to be converted to farmland, and he wouldn't be able to see natural areas anymore. He posted that it's better that one child starve to death today than fifty children (the starving child's potential offspring) die in fifty years. Especially if it meant less farmland destroying his view. And he got a bunch of positive responses to his selfish, elitist, eugenic ideas.
I will NOT pay taxes to the UN.
Period.
They can put me in prison...I will not support a one-world government...for many reasons including religious ones.
What they should do is an "Adopt a needy country" program. ;-)
Then we'll see how many altruistic nations there are out there. We've already adopted Afghanistan and Iraq, along with Israel, much of Latin America, and Africa.
See them match that!
"Socialism and Communism have starved more people than the UN could even imagine helping..."
This can be settled for far less money. The people that the communists and socialists starve to death could be turned into Soylent Green. This way they can feed their population, put people to work and provide a viable food source for millions.
End of poverty.
"Socialism and Communism have starved more people than the UN could even imagine helping...
deserves repeating: Socialism and Communism have starved more people than the UN could even imagine helping...
Oh wait, you mean the ones who signed would all qualify as recipients ? No one would get a penny unless we "contributed" 100% of the budget? This scam is one better than Robin Hood, where the poor vote to morally blackmail the rich guy into supporting them. Sounds like a piece of the plotline from Atlas Shrugged.
Our Judeo-Christian ethics sure cause us to be targets for these schemes. I wonder what the Kuran says about feeding the poor? or does it say behead the poor ?
Does anyone have any figures to show how much of the UN budget is already coming from the US? Can anyone explain why the US continues to support Kofi since the UN is all about weakening the US and destroying our influence? The fact that the UN HQ is inside our border is truly disgusting. We should give the UN the 1-finger salute-pull out and boot them out of NYC!!
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