As my Dad pointed out in the emailed link to an article on the new British PM Gordon Brown, it's nice to have a world leader who's focused on helping people. Here's an excerpt:

"To address the worst of poverty, we need to summon up the best of humanity, and I want to summon into existence a great coalition of conscience in pursuit of the greatest of causes.

"And I firmly believe that if we can discover a common purpose, there is no failing in today's world, that cannot be addressed by mobilising our strengths, and there's no individual struggle that drags people down that cannot benefit from a renewed public purpose that will lift people up."

He said the goal of providing primary education for every child by 2015 would not be met until 2100, while the goal of cutting infant mortality by two thirds would not be reached until 2050 unless action was taken now.

He said the situation had to be declared to be a "development emergency".

He said 12 world leaders and 20 business leaders had signed a new "commitment to action" to meet the "emergency".

"I want us to come together as one world. I want us to call an emergency meeting next year at which we report on where we are and what we have to do."

He said scientists, engineers and the medical profession were key to helping reach the goals.

Mr Brown compared the plan to former US President John F Kennedy's 1960 call for an international peace corps.

That was "an international commitment to harness the idealism many felt in the face of threats to human progress and world peace," Mr Brown said.

"Today we should evoke the same spirit to forge a coalition for justice."