The United Nations urged a summit on the global food crisis on Tuesday to help stop the spread of starvation threatening nearly one billion people by lowering trade barriers and removing export bans. ”Nothing is more degrading than hunger, especially when man-made,” UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told world leaders.
Britain criticised as obscene the presence of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe at this week’s global food summit in Rome, saying he had inflicted shortages on millions of his own people by his ”profound misrule”. Mugabe flew into Rome late on Sunday, making his first official trip abroad since elections condemned by Western leaders as fraudulent.