The annual Davos gathering of corporate wealth and political power turned its lofty gaze on the world's poor on Friday, with delegates chided over failures to deliver on development goals.
Rock star activist Bono, billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon steered the conversation in the Swiss ski resort away from the global economy and geopolitics, towards issues such as infant mortality, poverty alleviation and climate change.
Ban challenged delegates to renew a commitment to the UN Millennium Development Goals, aimed at halving extreme poverty, boosting health and education and further empowering women across the developing world by 2015.
PHOTO: AFP
"Too many nations have fallen behind," he said. "We need new ideas and fresh approaches."
The Davos event has long prided itself on showing the caring side of capitalism, although participants have often been criticized for trumpeting big ideas on big issues in public, while actually expending most of their energy on corridor schmoozing and backroom deals.
Bono, decrying the international community's failure to live up to its promises on development, said it was time to go beyond purely "moral" statements of intent.
"I would like to turn our moral compact into legally binding contracts. Then my advice to the developing world? Get a good lawyer and haul our asses into court," the U2 frontman said.
This year's Davos event has drawn nearly 30 heads of state or government, more than 110 Cabinet ministers and several hundred leaders of industry who, while applauding the cause of corporate responsibility, stressed the inherent constraints they worked under.
"If we lose sight of our core function of serving our customers and creating shareholder value ... we'll be out of our jobs," said Peter Sands, chief executive of international bank Standard Chartered.
Gates, a perennial Davos participant, announced US$306 million in grants to develop farming in poor countries, marking a major push into agriculture by his charitable foundation which has previously focused on improving public health.
"If we are serious about ending extreme hunger and poverty around the world, we must be serious about transforming agriculture for small farmers, most of whom are women," he said.
DISASTER: The Bangladesh Meteorological Department recorded a magnitude 5.7 and tremors reached as far as Kolkata, India, more than 300km away from the epicenter A powerful earthquake struck Bangladesh yesterday outside the crowded capital, Dhaka, killing at least five people and injuring about a hundred, the government said. The magnitude 5.5 quake struck at 10:38am near Narsingdi, Bangladesh, about 33km from Dhaka, the US Geological Survey (USGS) said. The earthquake sparked fear and chaos with many in the Muslim-majority nation of 170 million people at home on their day off. AFP reporters in Dhaka said they saw people weeping in the streets while others appeared shocked. Bangladesh Interim Leader Muhammad Yunus expressed his “deep shock and sorrow over the news of casualties in various districts.” At least five people,
LEFT AND RIGHT: Battling anti-incumbent, anticommunist sentiment, Jeanette Jara had a precarious lead over far-right Jose Antonio Kast as they look to the Dec. 14 run Leftist candidate Jeannette Jara and far-right leader Jose Antonio Kast are to go head-to-head in Chile’s presidential runoff after topping Sunday’s first round of voting in an election dominated by fears of violent crime. With 99 percent of the results counted, Jara, a 51-year-old communist running on behalf of an eight-party coalition, won 26.85 percent, compared with 23.93 percent for Kast, the Servel electoral service said. The election was dominated by deep concern over a surge in murders, kidnappings and extortion widely blamed on foreign crime gangs. Kast, 59, has vowed to build walls, fences and trenches along Chile’s border with Bolivia to
DEATH SENTENCE: The ousted leader said she was willing to attend a fresh trial outside Bangladesh where the ruling would not be a ‘foregone conclusion’ Bangladesh’s fugitive former prime minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday called the guilty verdict and death sentence in her crimes against humanity trial “biased and politically motivated.” Hasina, 78, defied court orders that she return from India to attend her trial about whether she ordered a deadly crackdown against the student-led uprising that ousted her. She was found guilty and sentenced to death earlier yesterday. “The verdicts announced against me have been made by a rigged tribunal established and presided over by an unelected government with no democratic mandate,” Hasina said in a statement issued from hiding in India. “They are biased and politically motivated,” she
It is one of the world’s most famous unsolved codes whose answer could sell for a fortune — but two US friends say they have already found the secret hidden by Kryptos. The S-shaped copper sculpture has baffled cryptography enthusiasts since its 1990 installation on the grounds of the CIA headquarters in Virginia, with three of its four messages deciphered so far. Yet K4, the final passage, has kept codebreakers scratching their heads. Sculptor Jim Sanborn, 80, has been so overwhelmed by guesses that he started charging US$50 for each response. Sanborn in August announced he would auction the 97-character solution to K4
RSS