German Minister Calls Poverty WMD

German's development minister Sunday called poverty "a weapon of mass destruction" and lashed out at the "incoherent" contrast between the money spent on arms and international development. Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul thanked the groups that had taken part in Berlin's Live 8 concert to raise awareness of Africa's problems. "Poverty is a weapon of mass destruction that must be eradicated from this world by dedicating more resources to cooperation, by eliminating debt and through fair trade relations," she said. Wieczorek-Zeul stressed the incoherent contrast between the "trillion dollars spent in the world on arms and the 78 billion on international cooperation." "The world would more effectively fight against poverty, hunger and violence if these sums were inversed," she said.