Summit faces uphill struggle

WITH a call for an end to the “global apartheid” between rich and poor ringing in their ears, delegates to the Earth Summit in Johannesburg began talks yesterday aimed at relieving poverty and healing the planet.

As rooftop sharpshooters and battalions of police and troops shielded them from the risk of angry protests, host president Thabo Mbeki of South Africa told the representatives of nearly 200 governments that it was time to scrap a world order based on the "savage principle of the survival of the fittest".

"A global human society based on poverty for many and prosperity for a few, characterised by islands of wealth, surrounded by a sea of poverty, is unsustainable," he told the opening session of the World Summit on Sustainable Development.