The U.N. World Summit on Food Security ended Wednesday in Rome with Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) head Jacques Diouf calling for the global community to shift the fight against global hunger from "words to action," Agence France-Press reports. Diouf said, "We must do this to have a more prosperous world, fairer, more equitable and more peaceful. But above all we must do this fast: the poor and starving can not wait" (11/18).

The Associated Press reports that "a loud chorus of critics ... questioned the value of the summit's outcome," including Oxfam, which "denounced the gathering as a 'lackluster' effort that wound up offering what it called 'crumbs' for the world's hungry, estimated at one of every six people on Earth." Oxfam spokpesrson Gawain Kripke said, "A single meeting can't solve world hunger, but we certainly expected far more than this" (D'Emilio, 11/18).

According to the Vancouver Sun, the "final declaration, adopted on the first day of the three-day event, promises no new financial commitments, but says governments will 'reinforce' efforts to meet the goal they set at the U.N.'s 2000 Millennium Summit to halve the number of hungry people by 2015…