Globalization key to future, says Clinton
Globalization key to future, says Clinton
DUBLIN (AFP): Former U.S. president Bill Clinton urged
countries to work closer together to alleviate world poverty, in
a speech in Dublin on the latest leg of his lucrative speaking
tour.
He said more people had been lifted out of poverty in the last
two decades than at any time in history but poorer nations had
been left behind and needed more international debt relief.
"There are a whole of lot of people out there who are not part
of this modern world," he told his audience at Trinity College,
Dublin, late Monday.
"If we want our children to have the future of our dreams for
them, we have to decide to take all those other children along
with them.
"If we do, I think the 21st century will be the most
prosperous, the most peaceful, and maybe even more important, the
most fascinating time in all of human history."
Clinton is being paid more than $100,000 (113,000 euros) per
speech for his engagements during his 10-stop European tour,
which takes in Poland, Sweden, Austria, Britain, Belgium, Spain,
Norway and Spain.
A group of anti-globalization protesters picketed the
university where the former president was speaking.
He said protesters worldwide against globalization were wrong
when they said it was responsible for poverty, disease and
misery.
"But the protesters have a point if they say instead that
there has been a global economy which has developed more quickly
than the global social institutions necessary to ameliorate the
problems and expand opportunity.
"For all the new millionaires and billionaires in the world,
we began the new century with half the people on the face of the
earth living on less than two dollars a day.
"One billion people live on less than a dollar a day. One-and-
a-half billion people never have access to clean water. One woman
dies every minute in childbirth. One hundred million children
never go to school at all."
The former president will be guest of honor at a charity
dinner in Dublin later Tuesday in recognition of his contribution
to the peace process.
He will then travel to Northern Ireland where is expected to
visit Belfast, Enniskillen and Derry on Wednesday and Thursday,
giving a boost to supporters of the peace process ahead of
general elections on June 7.