Head of UN agency seeks postponement of World Food Summit

The head of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said today that in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks against the United States he was seeking postponement of the "World Food Summit: Five Years Later" scheduled for next month.

"Unfortunately the present international circumstances and the loss of so many innocent lives and the crisis that followed have led us to seek postponement of such an event," FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf said in a statement issued in Rome.

Scheduled for 5-9 November, the follow-up event was to take place within the biennial FAO Conference, which has been monitoring progress toward the goal of halving global hunger by 2015.

At the meeting, world leaders were to outline the measures needed to achieve the goal, and make suggestions on how to accelerate progress. They were also expected to consider how to increase resources available for agricultural and rural development.