South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki waits to address the 61st General Assembly of the United Nations at U.N. headquarters in New York, September 19, 2006. (Ray Stubblebine/Reuters)
Posted on 09/19/2006 3:42:05 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Callous wealthy nations are indifferent to the plight of the poor as they pursue selfish policies which enrich the few at the expense of the many, South African President Thabo Mbeki said on Tuesday.
"These billions of poor people are increasingly becoming impatient because every year they hear us adopt declaration after declaration and yet nothing practical is done to assuage the hunger pains that keep them awake at night," he told the United Nations General Assembly.
At the Millennium Summit in September 2000, world leaders at the United Nations agreed a series of goals to aid development.
They vowed to cut extreme poverty -- defined as living on less than $1 a day -- by half by 2015 as well as reversing the spread of AIDS.
But Mbeki said poverty was increasing "during an era of unprecedented wealth accumulation and technological advances" and pointed the finger at rich nations, who he said insisted on an unequal relationship with the poor.
"The majority of the human race is entitled to ask the question whether the rich are responding the way they do because the further impoverishment of the poor is to the advantage of the rich," he said.
The Commonwealth of mainly former British colonies, many of them in Africa, last week urged rich nations to keep their promises to end poverty.
Only a handful of developed nations have achieved the goal of spending 0.7 percent of their gross domestic product on international aid.
Mbeki said the rich had directed an "uncaring declaration to the poor of today ... even when they are acutely aware that many in their neighborhood die of hunger, of preventable diseases and abject poverty."
Mbeki's South Africa is in many ways a microcosm of the global wealth divide, with some of the starkest income disparities in the world and widespread poverty.
But Mbeki himself has been accused by foreign and domestic critics of embracing market-friendly policies at home which have enabled a few blacks to accumulate vast wealth and some to enter the middle class while millions remain stuck in squalor.
Mbeki said the solution to increasing poverty is to reform the United Nations and thereby help overcome "the cold reality of the indifference of the many among the rich and powerful."
South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki waits to address the 61st General Assembly of the United Nations at U.N. headquarters in New York, September 19, 2006. (Ray Stubblebine/Reuters)
Mbeki himself has been accused by foreign and domestic critics of embracing market-friendly policies at home which have enabled a few blacks to accumulate vast wealth and some to enter the middle class while millions remain stuck in squalor.
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Africa is a continent rich in resources that has been squandered and the benefits thereof stolen by a few , not all of them white or foreign, coincidentally.
You might try inquiring how the rich and powerful got that way, Thabo.
(Hint - not by passing more UN resolutions)
Well, I've sent thousands of dollars to Nigeria and have nothing to show for it. I'm still waiting..
90+ percent of current world poverty can be laid at the feet of corrupt, incompetent governments and communist theory.
Period.
Left-wing wackos always say that the rich got rich by "oppressing" the poor. When you ask a wacko specifically how the rich oppress the poor, they'll usually break a sweat, get red in the face, pop a vein on their forehead, stutter and stammer for a few seconds, then call you a racist or a sexist or a homophobe or an Islamophobe or a...
South Africa used to be a rich country.....remember
"Oh nonsense."
That will be enough of that type of talk!
Lemme guess, you are one of those 'radical' types, right? The type that just has to throw facts, solid logic and reasoning into the mix.
BTW, what's your "Pi$$ on Parade" count up to?
:-)
How much did the U.S. and "the rich" nations contribute to Africa and other 3rd world hell-holes?
Maybe if these nations adopted capitalism, instead of failed socialism, they wouldn't be poor.
Yes, the UN should do something to eradicate poverty.
It should go in and kick out govts that oppress their people and replace them with free enterprise oriented govts that govern in the interests of the populations prosperity and economic freedom, etc.
Of course to do that, the UN would have to oust the govts of most of it's members.
Going to happen anytime soon?
But think about it? The NKorea govt ousted and the SKorea govt run NKorea. Not that the SKorea govt doesn't have room to improve, but seriously, think of the economic turnaround that would happen.
Now Thabo wants to saddle me with African poverty, even World poverty ... enough already!
property
Rule
of law
no domestic
taxation
Courts to enforce
obligation of contract
The little things...
Dead. On. Correct.
I heard a report recently on National Peoples Radio that since WW2 the US has contributed over 400 BILLION in aid to Africa.
We have exactly NOTHING to show for it. Nor do the Africans. Someone should have pointed this out today at the UN.
Were we better off before of after apartheid. South Africa is another African communist country that wants the world to bail them out.
Welfare is welfare it don't work.
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