Geneva: Economist Sachs Slams Bush on 'War Agenda,' AIDS

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>

> Economist Sachs Slams Bush on 'War Agenda,' AIDS

> Mon Dec 1, 1:32 PM ET

> By Louis Charbonneau

>

> VIENNA (Reuters) - Leading U.S. economist Jeffrey Sachs fiercely attacked

> President Bush

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> sites) on Monday for pursuing an " agenda of war " and neglecting the fight

> against poverty and AIDS

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> sites) in the developing world.

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> " Development was pushed off the world's agenda this year by an agenda

about

> war, " said Sachs, who is a special adviser to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi

> Annan

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> sites) and head of Columbia University's Earth Institute.

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> " September 11, which has dominated the world's agenda for more than two

> years, claimed 3,000 lives. Every day, 20,000 people are dying because of

> poverty -- from AIDS, TB (tuberculosis) and malaria. Every single day, " he

> said.

>

> Speaking at the opening of the annual General Conference for the United

> Nations

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> sites) Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), Sachs said the world

> was spending an astronomical amount of money on the instruments of war and

> a fraction of that on AIDS.

>

> " This year, the world will spend $900 billion on armaments, $50 billion on

> development assistance, and perhaps one billion dollars on AIDS, " he said

> in his speech coinciding with World AIDS Day.

>

> " And my own country, the United States, will spend $450 billion on the

> military and $10 billion on development assistance -- a ratio of 45 to

> one, " he added.

>

> Sachs told a news conference that AIDS had clearly become a pandemic.

>

> " Why? Well, President Bush proposed $200 million of his budget to the

> global fund to fight AIDS, TB and malaria, " he said. " Two hundred million

> and $87 billion for the war in Iraq

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> sites). "

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> Asked what the money the United States spent on the war in Iraq could have

> achieved in the developing world, he said:

>

> " We could readily have saved millions of lives this year over the period

of

> this war. Around three million people, mostly children in Africa will die

> this year of malaria.

>

> " The cost of controlling malaria in sub-Saharan Africa is probably on the

> order of about $3 billion a year -- only. Yet the rich world spends only

> around $100 million, and thereby lets nearly three million die. "

>

> Sachs said in his UNIDO speech that the U.N. " millennium goals " were all

> reachable, but the world's rich countries had to spend more money on

> development aid if they are to be met.

>

> These goals, which are the focus of this week's UNIDO conference, include

> cutting in half the number of people in the world living on less than a

> dollar a day and reversing the spread of AIDS, malaria and other diseases

> by 2015.

>

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