United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, has called for drastic measures to protect developing countries against the global financial crisis.
He says the world's central banks and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) might have to set up substantial lines of credit to give banks in developing nations adequate funds to meet emergencies.
Mr Ban says the financial crisis might otherwise be a blow that many of the world's poorest people could not survive.
In a meeting with heads of UN agencies, the World Bank and the IMF, Mr Ban said the crisis "threatens to undermine all our achievements and all our progress in eradicating poverty and disease. Our efforts to fight climate change and promote development. To ensure that people have enough to eat."
In a statement after the meeting, Mr Ban said the crisis should not be allowed to hit hardest "those least responsible" - the poor in developing countries.
He said he would put that case to a financial summit in Washington on 15 November called by US President George Bush.
Mr Ban has been invited to that gathering along with leaders of the G20 - the Group of Seven top industrial democracies and key emerging economies.
"As secretary-general I am going to emphasise, as I have been doing in the past, to ask the world leaders to give priority in addressing the challenges of developing countries," he said.
Slow food the way forward
The best response to the global financial crisis is to "slow down" and return to local economies that offer better food and help protect the environment, said the founder of the Slow Food movement.
"We are tired of the policy of growth at any price, and of this greed-driven financial world that has destroyed real values," Carlo Petrini said at the movement's biennial gathering in Turin, northern Italy.
"This consumer society creates waste, people have been reduced to the role of consumers. We need to slow down," he said.
"It's criminal that governments have succeeded in finding two trillion euros for the banks while they can't find any money to save millions of people from famine."
