War on terror drains funds from poverty fight

http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/html/20031201T230000-0500_52409_OBS_WAR_ON_TERROR_DRAINS_FUNDS_FROM_POVERTY_FIGHT.asp

VIENNA, (AFP) -- The war on terrorism has pushed the fight against the poverty that afflicts billions of people off the international agenda, a leading US economist told the UN's development organisation yesterday.

"Development was pushed off the world's agenda this year by an agenda about war," Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University in New York, told an opening session of the annual meeting in Vienna of the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO). He said the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, which have "dominated the world's agenda for more than two years, claimed 3,000 lives.

"(But) every day 20,000 people are dying of their poverty from (not being able to afford treatment against diseases like) AIDS, TB and malaria," said Sachs, who is special advisor to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan on a group of poverty alleviation initiatives called the Millennium Development Goals.

Sachs said the United States will this year spend 450 billion dollars (US$535 million) on the military and 10 billion dollars on development assistance -- a ratio of 45 to one.

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Our "compassionate conservative" in action. Priorities.

. . even in my own municipality up here in Canukville, the "leaders" deny we have a "homeless" problem.

The fact I see them crawling out of dumpsters and lobbies in the early morning means nothing

I even have heard the opinion from one of our legal services directors that "they are homeless because they WANT to be" -

Ya right -

Scrounging through the garbage at McDonalds for breakfast -

We ALL want that - !!

Admitting there is a homeless problem is a blatant statement that our Kapitalist system ain't working so great

And we Kan't have THAT now can we ??

A society with Billionaires and Milliionaires and Homeless next door just doesn't compute properly, now does it ?(over 1,000,000 children in Canada in poverty - and We is only 30,000,000 !! - shameful, no?)

Can't even imagine how many it is in the USA, but not likely there are any "real" numbers available ?

But BILLIONS are available to drop bombs on defenseless countries

(sigh)

And how many holiday meals for the homeless would that have covered?

Nation of flagrant abuse.