Stunted development:

"The president of the World Bank, James Wolfensohn, chided the world's rich countries this week for not providing enough aid for the world's poorest states. Mr Wolfensohn argued that low levels of aid from rich countries contributed to international instability and was unacceptable at a time of unprecedented military spending.

He pointed out that while global defence spending - including military budgets in the developing world - stood at $900bn, money for development amounted to between $50bn and $60bn.

'If we spent $900bn on development, we probably wouldn't need to spend more than $50bn on defence,' said Mr Wolfensohn.