Looks like another international organization has chastised rich nations for screwing the poor :

The World Bank opened its annual meeting Tuesday with a blistering attack on rich countries for spending hundreds of billions more on their militaries and their farmers than they do on helping the poor.

“Our planet is not balanced,” World Bank President James Wolfensohn told delegates from 184 countries. “Too few control too much, and too many have too little to hope for. Too much turmoil, too many wars. Too much suffering.”

The failure of global trade talks this month in the Mexican resort of Cancun highlights the deep divide that must be overcome to create a stable future, Wolfensohn said in an opening address to the joint meeting of his bank and the International Monetary Fund.

He criticized rich countries for providing just $56 billion a year in development assistance to poor countries, compared with more than $300 billion they spend on agricultural subsidies and $600 billion spent on defense. Nations have committed an additional $16 billion in aid by 2006, but Wolfensohn said poor nations could easily use twice as much.

Our leaders love to sell “free trade” to the public with the idea that the poor will be helped everywhere, but when it comes time to actually help poor countries there’s always something that gets in the way. Could it be that our businesses are addicted to cheap overseas labor? I dunno….