Clash at talks on poverty

Press, 23 August 1979, Page 6

Clash at talks on poverty

NZPA-Reuter Vienna China has taken the Soviet Union to task at the United Nations conference on science and poverty over the nuclear arms face. The meeting, the first United Nation's Conference on Science and Technology for Development, aims to draft a plan to bring the benefits of science to the impoverished millions of the Third world. The chief Soviet delegate, Academician Germen Gwishiani, said such endeavours would fail unless mankind averted the threat of nuclear war and halted the arms race. The Chinese delegation leader, Mr Jiang Mmg, speaking soon afterwards said: “He. who sings the tune of detente the loudest is,> in fact, using scientific and technological achievements to carry out a large-scale arms rage in a bid for nuclear arms supremacy and world hegemony.”

The Soviet and Chinese speeches were made at the plenary session on the second day of the conference, at which the “Group of 77” developing countries seek huge sums in aid for Third World science. Academician Gwishiani said every fourth scientist in the world was to be found in the Soviet Union. Its scientific achievements were a result of socialist planning. He also said 40 per cent of pig iron produced in

developing countries and 30 per cent of steel came from plants built with Soviet help. Mr Ming urged that’ Science be used to alleviate the miseries of the poor rather than to make the rich richer. The United Nations Secre-tary-General (Dr Kurt Waldheim) told the 4000 delegates that 97 per cent of scientific research and development was carried od(t in the 28 industrialised Owntries, much of it devoted to the arms race and what he called wasteful consumerism. To raise living standards, the "group of 77” (actually 120) developing countries want a United Nations fund, to which the rich countries would have to contribute, to pump $2OOO million a year into Third World science by, 1985. Western countries, whe would be expected to put up half the money in the' new fund, are sceptical of being able to find such sums and of the Third World’s ability to absorb them usefully. The West German Minister of Research and Technology (Mr Volker Hauff) said many new technologies were not suited to i Third World conditions, but some, such as advanced communications systems for remote areas, were what was needed. He said West Germany would increase the use of its Government-supported research and development institutions for development aid.