SIR - The South West has responded to the Asian tsunami appeal with huge generosity, raising an estimated £10 million to date.
At the same time, every year more than ten million children world-wide die of hunger and preventable diseases, 800 million people go to bed hungry every day and five people die from AIDS every minute.
Debt relief and high quality aid are urgently needed if we are to tackle global injustice. World trade is neither free nor fair but greater justice in trade can overcome poverty.
In the South West we are deeply concerned, despite the promises of world leaders, that at our present sluggish rate of progress the world will fail dismally to reach internationally agreed targets to halve global poverty by 2015. A vital decade lies ahead.
We welcome the new year in with a real chance to radically tackle world poverty.
The UK government will be a particularly influential player on the world stage as it hosts the annual G8 gathering of powerful world leaders and heads up the European Union. There may never again be such a chance for the UK Government, with the help of the British public, to transform the world for good. The Trade Justice Movement, already representing nine million people, has now joined with a wider range of charities, trade unions, campaigning groups and celebrities to form a Make Poverty History coalition. We currently comprise 159 organisations, aiming to be the most powerful coalition ever against world poverty.
The government must act now to change its policies on trade, match rhetoric with action and finally deliver on broken promises to cancel the unpayable debts of the poorest countries. We want to see 100 percent debt relief, an end to unfair trade rules and more and better aid.
Unless we act the opportunity of a generation will be missed. The symbol of the campaign is a simple white band - we hope that millions of people will sign up to the campaign, join in local and national activities and wear a white band in 2005.
Poverty kills 30,000 children every day - 2005 can be the year to end that death toll - we invite the government to act and readers to join with us to make a new year resolution to Make Poverty History.
The Make Poverty History Coalition C/o Brunswick Court Brunswick Square Bristol
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