U.S. Backs Away From Poverty Alleviation

The U.N. lead effort to halve extreme poverty by 2015 has been dealt a sharp blow by the United States. The Millennium Development Goals (MDG) create an ambitious plan that, if followed, can alleviate poverty and hunger worldwide using less than 1 percent of the developed world's monetary resources. However, in preparation for next month's U.N. summit, the United States has proposed a revised document that eliminates nearly all mention of the program. With the addition of the recent hurricane disaster, it is unlikely that many foreign aid commitments will be met by the national government for some time.