Critics Say UN Food Summit Wasteful, Ineffective

Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe, blamed for plunging his people into starvation, used his platform as Tuesday's opening speaker at the U.N. anti-hunger summit to decry what he called his neocolonialist foes. Another longtime African strongman, Moammar Gadhafi, held another nightly soiree at a villa in the Italian capital in the company of hundreds of young ladies selected by a "hostess" agency. Tunisia's first lady and her bodyguards blocked traffic on roads leading to Via Condotti, a glamorous street of designer boutiques near the Spanish Steps. Rome daily Il Messaggero ran a photo of Leila Zine in front of luxury jewelry store Bulgari. The images bolstered criticism that the summit called by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization is long on rhetoric and extravagance and short on solutions for the world's 1 billion hungry...read more