Reduce poverty
EU offers $1.3 billion to reduce poverty UNITED NATIONS: Reduce Poverty European leaders have offered one billion euros (1.3 billion dollars) at the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) summit here, amid mounting calls for money to pay for the battle to cut extreme poverty. The huge sum was offered late Monday by EU commission president Jose Manuel Barroso at the end of the first day of a summit on the goals, knocked off track by the international financial crisis. President Nicolas Sarkozy of France and Spain's Prime Minister Jose Luis Zapatero earlier stepped up a push for a new global financial tax, raising pressure on the world's wealthy countries at the three-day summit to contribute more in the drive to eradicate poverty and improve child and maternal health. African nations in particular are calling for more action and the West can expect little sympathy when the likes of Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speak on Tuesday. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said...