Poverty 'is world's worst threat'
 18 Feb. 2004      
 By Alex Kirby 
 BBC News Online environment correspondent 

 The leader of Catholics in England and Wales, Cardinal
 Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, says the biggest challenge
 confronting the world is not terrorism but poverty. 

 "We may be at risk of getting our definitions and our
  priorities wrong." 

 "States fail when they are incapable of lifting people
  out of poverty, or when they pay insufficient heed to the
  importance of ensuring that wealth is adequately distributed
  so that the whole of the population can flourish."

 "Indeed, they fail when they do not take seriously the
  obligation to ensure that wealth is not created for the few
  and at the expense of the many." 

 "The greatest scandal and scourge of humankind is, in fact,
  dire poverty and the misery and exploitation that accompanies
  and exacerbates it. That is the real scandal... there is a
  genuine recognition that this is the big issue for our times." 

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