A UN summit on the plight of the planet's one billion hungry opens here Monday, with activists warning it risks being a waste of time as leaders of the world's wealthiest nations are to be conspicuous by their absence.

A UN summit on the plight of the planet's one billion hungry opens here Monday, with activists warning it risks being a waste of time as leaders of the world's wealthiest nations are to be conspicuous by their absence.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon opened a UN food security summit on Monday calling for a "single global vision" to address the plight of the world's billion hungry people.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon opened a UN food security summit on Monday calling for a "single global vision" to address the plight of the world's billion hungry people.

The UN Hunger Summit on Monday vowed "urgent action" to combat food shortages but drew fire for failing to pledge new funds or set a timetable to beat the scourge affecting more than one billion people.

ROME (Reuters) - The United Nations said on Monday that agreeing a climate change deal in Copenhagen next month is crucial to fighting global hunger, which Brazil's president described as "the most devastating weapon of mass destruction."

ROME (Reuters) - The United Nations said on Monday that agreeing a climate change deal in Copenhagen next month is crucial to fighting global hunger, which Brazil's president described as "the most devastating weapon of mass destruction."

A UN summit on world hunger drew fire on Monday, even from the head of the UN food agency, for failing to pledge new funds or set a timetable to beat the scourge affecting more than one billion people.

The UN Hunger Summit on Monday vowed "urgent action" to combat food shortages but drew fire for failing to pledge new funds or set a timetable to beat the scourge affecting more than one billion people.

Geithner: Efforts to fix global financial flaws, avoid new crises will fail if US drops ball. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told Congress on Tuesday that efforts to strengthen the global financial system to prevent another deep crisis will falter if the United States drops the ball on overhauling regulation of its own banking system.

Critics: UN summit ends with 'crumbs' in bid to reduce hunger in world with food for all. The head of a U.N. food agency expressed regret Wednesday that an anti-hunger summit failed to result in precise promises of funding, and critics said the meeting had only thrown crumbs to the world's 1 billion people without enough to eat.

UN food official questions world's commitment to fighting hunger. The director of a U.N. food agency questioned Wednesday how world powers could commit so much money to fighting the financial crisis and not to feeding the 1 billion hungry.

Finance ministers and central bankers from the world's seven richest countries will meet in the Canadian Arctic in February, ahead of the full G20 summits later in 2010, officials announced Wednesday.

Japan's native people, the Ainu, once hunted bears and fished for salmon in the wild forests of the country's far north, but today they are an ethnic minority fighting for their cultural survival.

China said Sunday it expects to cut energy consumption per unit of gross domestic product by five percent this year but meeting a pledge to cut consumption by 20 percent by 2010 would be difficult.

UN negotiations for a global climate treaty resumed in Bangkok on Monday amid fears that delegates will fail to agree on a draft text ahead of December's crucial showdown in Copenhagen.

UN negotiations for a global climate treaty resumed in Bangkok Monday amid bleak warnings that failure to break a deadlock ahead of a showdown in Copenhagen would threaten future generations.

UN negotiations for a global climate treaty resumed in Bangkok Monday amid bleak warnings that failure to break a deadlock ahead of a showdown in Copenhagen would threaten future generations.

The UN climate chief warned on Monday that time was running out to break a deadlock on a global warming pact, telling delegates in Bangkok that failure to do so by December would threaten future generations.

The UN climate chief warned Monday that time was running out to break a deadlock on a global warming pact, telling delegates in Bangkok that failure to do so by December would threaten future generations.