RIGHTS: ‘Just Let Them Die’?

Global Geopolitics Net Sites / IDN

BY BAHER KAMAL

IDN-InDepthNews Service

MADRID (IDN) – "La matematica non e un’ opinione," Italians say. And they are right: mathematics is not an opinion.

And this is what mathematics says:
- Industrialised countries handed over US$ 18 trillion in one single year to their private banks and private giant financial corporations for the sake of saving them from the bankruptcy they themselves have caused to themselves and the whole world.

- These US$ 18 trillion in one year is equivalent to nine folds of all aid provided by all industrialised countries to all poor, developing nations in the course of around 50 long years.

- The world spends in narcotics around US$ 322 billions a year.

- World military budgets amount to US$ 1.6 trillion a year.

- The five permanent members of the UN Security Council spend around on trillion U.S. dollars a year on their armies and weapons.

- U.S. sales in weapons amount this year to US$ 40 billion.

- Local capital adding up to US$ 44 billion ran away from one country alone — Argentina — in the last two years.

- The cost of saving the planet from climate change disasters caused by industrialised countries is estimated at about one trillion US$ year.

These are figures, mathematics. And their message is that there is plenty of money to spend on weapons, save private corporations and waste on narcotics, let alone on wars on an unidentified enemy called "terrorism".

There is however another kind of mathematics that is systematically ignored and only mentioned when it comes to world summits:

- One of every six living persons on Earth, that’s a total of 1002 million people, either do not eat at all or are permanently hungry,

- 50,000 people are dying of extreme poverty and hunger every single day,

- Only one and half US$ per person and week would be enough not only to feed all hungry people but also to erase the word hunger from all dictionaries.

- US$ 44 billion are needed each year to feed the current billion hungry people.

- Only US$ 20 billons have been announced by the G8 in Italy but not at all firmly committed and certainly never delivered, while there would be no guarantee anyway that this money would be committed every year as needed.

- The amount announced by G8 represents less than half of the money required to feed the world’s current billion hungry, let alone those waiting on the wings.

Consequently, mathematically, more people than all those living in all European countries — if not the whole package of one billion hungry people – should have no hope to eat and therefore just die.

At the current rate of 50,000 people dying from extreme poverty and hunger every day, that’s 500,000 in 10 days, or 1,500,000 in a month and so on, it would take the one billion hungry a bit of time to definitely vanish from the face of the Earth.

Whatever it takes, probably everybody will be happy to enjoy living in a world with hunger.

Maybe it’s just about that. (IDN/InDepthNews/18.11.09)

Copyright © 2009 IDN-InDepthNews Service

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission the original author or copyright holder.