MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Amnesty pessimistic about turning around the rich/poor gap

UN Jan Pronk, said that at least 1.5 billion people live on less than one dollar per day

The gap between rich and poor jumped fourfold globally in the last decade: while in the nineties a wealthy person had 30 times richer than a poor person, the rate has currently ballooned to 130 to one, according to the latest report from Amnesty International Council.

Meeting in the Mexican city of Morelos, 70 kilometers south of Mexico City the AI International Council, the former head of the United Nations mission in Sudan, Jan Pronk, said that at least 1.5 billion people live on less than one dollar per day. "Poverty in the world far from diminishing is increasing", mainly because of an "economic system that not only forgets about poverty, but tolerates and approves it", said Pronk addressing 400 AI activists. Pronk said that the Millennium goals, drafted by the United Nations for before 2014, such as reducing poverty, children and women mortality, improving health, education and ensuring appropriate birth conditions "will not be achieved". Nader Ferganiy who wrote the UN report on human development said that the US military expenditure in Iraq and Afghanistan would be sufficient to end poverty, twice, globally. Ferganiy added that China and India as emerging powers "do not anticipate a pink future for human rights. World powers instead of combating poverty and guaranteeing human rights "are creating greater inequalities because this is in their interests". Hernando de Soto, from Peru and president o the Libertad y Democracia institute said that inequality not only means "absolute poverty", but also "relative wealth", adding that under current conditions there's no way that "poor people can advance in the globalized world"