THE FAILURE OF CAPITALISM

"This Monday, world leaders are gathering at United Nations headquarters in New York City to address the UN's "Millennium Development Goals." The fight against hunger, along with education and healthcare, tops the list. The delegates have failed categorically on the first point. Leaders at the UN summit in New York in the millennium year 2000 declared food security their top priority, setting a goal of reducing the number of hungry in developing countries by half by 2015, compared to 1990 levels. That would involve reducing the total to around 600 million people. No discernable progress has been made toward this goal. In fact, quite the opposite is true -- the number of hungry has increased sharply in recent years, at times to over 1 billion. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), 925 million people currently suffer from hunger and malnutrition. Estimates say a further billion are undernourished, suffering from so-called silent hunger." (Der Spiegel, 20 September) RD