World leaders agreed to come up with $20 billion to fight hunger after a personal appeal from President Obama, who capped the European leg of his latest foreign trip with a visit to the Vatican this morning.At a news conference summarizing his first Group of 8 summit, Obama said the leading industrialized nations had made progress on feeding the hungry in the less developed world, controlling climate change and dealing with nuclear proliferation. His next and final stop before heading home to Washington will be Ghana.
Obama and his wife, Michelle, met for about 25 minutes with Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican, where the pair also exchanged gifts."It's a great honor for me. Thank you so much," Obama said as he met the pontiff for the first time. The two have talked by phone, however.The pope and Obama share similar concerns on some issues. Both have blamed greed for the current economic crisis around the globe and urged reforms for the business world. They also share a long-standing concern with providing economic help for the poor around the world.
"The president, in both his words and in his deeds, expresses many things that many Catholics recognize as fundamental to our teaching," said Denis McDonough, a devout Catholic and foreign policy advisor to the president. "One is that the president often refers to the fundamental belief that each person is endowed with dignity . . . and the president often underscores that dignity of people is a driving goal in what we hope to accomplish in development policy, for example, and in foreign policy."But the two are separated by issues as well, especially abortion rights, supported by Obama and vigorously opposed by the Vatican. Aides hope the papal audience helps Obama boost to his efforts to court American Catholics, and to rewrite the dialogue between progressives and the church in general.For weeks, aides to the president have been inviting abortion opponents to Washington to talk about finding common ground on issues like family planning, sex education and adoption. The White House is trying to come up with a series of recommendations by the end of the summer that both sides of the abortion issue can support.At the beginning of the Group of 8 summit here this week, world leaders had planned to raise $15 billion toward humanitarian efforts to feed the hungry, but decided over the course of two days to increase the amount to $20 billion at the request of Obama.During his news conference, Obama said the G-8 had made some progress, especially in getting nations to work together on common problems."We've come to L'Aquila [Italy] for a very simple reason: because the challenges of our time threaten the peace and prosperity of every single nation, and no one nation can meet these challenges alone," Obama said."The threat of climate change can't be contained by borders on a map, and the theft of loose nuclear materials could lead to the extermination of any city on Earth," he said. "Reckless actions by a few have fueled a recession that spans the globe, and rising food prices means that 100 million of our fellow citizens are expected to fall into desperate poverty."So right now, at this defining moment, we face a choice. We can either shape our future or let events shape it for us. We can let the stale debates and old disagreements of the past divide us, or we can recognize our shared interests and shared aspirations and work together to create a safer and cleaner and more prosperous world for future generations," Obama said.At the news conference Obama also defended his administration's work at home to pass healthcare reform, an effort that has come under fire from some on Capitol Hill as he takes his fourth foreign trip while lawmakers wrestle with his proposal.He also called on leaders of Iran to take note of the G-8 statement condemning its treatment of peaceful protests, Holocaust denial and defiance of international nuclear standards. Obama emphasized the consensus in the statement, noting that it included Russia, "which doesn't make statements like that lightly."As leaders discussed the problem of world hunger, according to people who were present, Obama at one point rose to make a personal appeal for a more substantial commitment to food security.When his father left Kenya five decades ago, his home country had a higher per capita income and gross domestic product than did South Korea. Today, South Korea is prosperous and Kenya still struggles with poverty, a state Obama attributes to stronger social institutions in South Korea.At his news conference, Obama acknowledged relying on his own history in arguing for extra aid."My father traveled to the United States a mere 50 years ago," he said. "Yet now I have family members who . . . live in villages where hunger is real."The question he raised in the meeting, he said, was, "Why is that?""If you talk to people on the ground in Africa, certainly in Kenya, they will say that, part of the issue here is the institutions aren't working for ordinary people," he said. For instance, he said, many people know they can't get jobs and other opportunities without paying bribes.Strengthening democracies and social institutions will be a key theme Obama emphasizes when he travels to Africa today. It will be the African American president's first trip to sub-Saharan Africa since his election last year.While there, Obama is expected to emphasize the responsibility of developing nations to use international assistance in a transparent and accountable way.
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