Peace prize winner urges global fight against poverty

BANGLADESHI economist Muhammad Yunus yesterday received the Nobel Peace Prize and urged world leaders to fight against poverty and stop spending money on wars.

Yunus and the Grameen Bank that he founded won the peace prize for their work to lift millions out of poverty by granting tiny loans to the poorest of the poor, especially women in rural Bangladesh.

Their work helping start businesses from basket weaving to chicken farming has pioneered a global movement known as microcredit.

“Poverty is a threat to peace,” Mr Yunus said in his acceptance speech. He said the link between a peaceful world and fight against poverty was clear.

He said the new millennium began with a dream to cut poverty in half by 2015 as agreed in the UN millennium goals in 2000.

“But then came September 11 and the Iraq war, and the world became derailed from the pursuit of this dream.”