The World Economic Forum, an annual gathering of global business and political officials, is meeting in New York to discuss leadership in a world changed by the September 11 attacks and the war on terrorism.
Following are highlights from the second day of the five-day conference, held for the first time away from Davos, Switzerland:
The United States urged global leaders to wage war on poverty as a root cause of terrorism and voiced robust confidence in its own prospects of economic recovery despite scepticism from some top economists.
"We have to go after poverty, we have to go after despair, we have to go after hopelessness," Secretary of State Colin Powell told the annual gathering of the world's business and power elite.
US Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill said that a slight pickup in US growth in the fourth quarter of 2001 was encouraging and the world's largest economy has the ability to return to healthy growth.
US Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill in a speech urged lenders such as the International Monetary Fund to help emerging nations lower their borrowing costs to make the global economy less prone to crises.
He also said in an interview with CNBC he hopes the Bush administration can get Congress to pass a stimulus package, which he said would help the economy grow.
Tokyo's top financial diplomat, Haurihiko Kuroda, said he does not see the yen sliding any further from its recent fall to three-year lows and said Japan is prepared to stem rapid movements in its currency when needed.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell injected a note of optimism to the Middle East crisis after weeks of unrelenting bloodshed, increasingly hardline Israeli-Palestinian rhetoric, and a bout of high-level hand-wringing at the World Economic Forum in New York. "We might be having some progress once again", Powell told Reuters in an interview, as he revealed that Israeli and Palestinian security officials had met -- with US participation -- in the Middle East earlier Friday.
US and Iranian officials clashed at the World Economic Forum over the future of Afghanistan, as an Iranian deputy foreign minister rejected suggestions that his country was meddling by supporting a local warlord. "Accusing Iran of interference in Afghanistan in a negative way is a mistake and is ignoring the facts on the ground," said Iran's Mohammad Hossein Adeli.
Scientists predicted a grim future replete with unprecedented biological threats, global warming and the possible takeover of humans by robots. "Extreme pessimism seems to me to be the only rational stance," Sir Martin Rees, Britain's Astronomer Royal, told a session at the World Economic Forum on future threats and opportunities presented by scientific advances.
Some 4,000 New York police and other law enforcement officers have locked down about 12 city blocks to protect the 2,700 delegates representing the world's corporate, political, religious and cultural elite meeting at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel. About 1,000 union members and activists protesting poor working conditions and low wages in garment manufacturer's "sweatshops" passed peacefully. Police said they made eight arrests at various protests on Thursday.
(c) Copyright 2000 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon.
