The only difference is that the accumulation of wealth by these two will be much more massive because they will no longer have to pay any taxes.

The Gates Foundation now has about $60 Billion under the control of the wealthiest people in America. They do not have to sell any of their positions in the stocks that they put under the tax-exempt umbrella. Furthermore, they can vote their stock holdings the same as if they did before and they can make the same investment decisions about their considerable corporate holdings. Both Buffet and Gates exhibited the most predatory capitalistic practices as corporate executives and investors. Microsoft and Berkshire Hathaway are not models of socially responsible capitalism. That being said, this foundation will be in the long run richer than the Catholic Church, which has accumulated wealth and power for over 1500 years. However, the results will be exactly the same. They will never liquidate enough of their assets to do any real good for the most onerous problem we have as humans; the worldwide poverty that is caused by the great disparity between the haves and the have-nots.

The Gates Foundation and the Catholic Church have the same goals. They are to keep the legacies for which they were created. For Bill Gates and Warren Buffet it is the control and legacy of family wealth as in the ancient days of the Pharos of Egypt. And by not paying any taxes, Gates will be more powerful than the Pope. I realize that this foundation has done more for disease research and education than any single government institution. But, that is just a condemnation of how little rich countries do for the less fortunate. And the United States is one of the worst examples of how little it does for its own people.

The great problems of the world today are a direct result of the wide disparity between the rich and poor. But, it is hard for the wealthiest to even look at this as an issue of most importance. Catholic Charities do a lot for the poor and I am sure that the Gates Foundation will do a lot for diseases of the poor. But, that is merely a band-aid for one of the symptoms of poverty. The real issue today is poverty.

The governments that keep their people in abject poverty while their leaders are obscenely rich from oil revenues cause many of the problems in the Middle East. But, even the poorest of their people now have access to satellite TV and Internet information that shows these people how much they are being exploited. The simple answer that they hate us for our freedom is absurd. They hate us because they see the wealthy and powerful as the cause of their suffering. As was the case in Germany in the 1920s, even a cultured society can succumb to irrationally violent leaders if they are hungry and poor. It is a human problem that we saw occur in a 1st world country. The 1968 movie, The Shoes of the Fisherman was a fictional account of a new Pope who had the conscience to solve world poverty by giving away all the Church's assets. Below is a summary of the plot from www.imdb.com.

"After twenty years in a Siberian labor camp, Kiril Lakota, the Metropolitan Archbishop of Lvov, is set free. The Catholic Archbishop is released and sent to Rome, where the ailing Pope makes him a Cardinal. The world is in a state of crisis - a famine in China is exacerbated by United States restrictions on Chinese trade and the ongoing Chinese-Soviet feud. When the Pontiff dies, Lakota finds himself elected Pope. But the new Pope Kiril I is plagued by self-doubt, by his years in prison, and by the strange world he knows so little about. This movie contains extensive information about Catholic faith & practice, as a television news reporter steps in from time-to-time to explain the procedures involved in selecting a new Pope."

The movie was not great but it did emphasize the point I am making in this piece. Unless wealthy people and governments around the world recognize the threat that poverty has on humanity, our chances of survival are markedly decreased. And unless the major wealth of the world is used to help feed its people, the diseases caused by poverty will never be cured. The prevention of diseases, both physical and mental, caused by hunger and poverty are the real dangers we face. And with all the concentrated wealth, we have the capacity to give everyone enough to survive and still leave the wealthy with plenty of luxuries. If Bill Gates gave $29 Billion away and kept only $1Billion he would still have a wonderful life. If he gave it to Sally Struthers, she could probably feed the world.

Canon Hall said: "If the pipes are showing corrosion even before they are installed, one wonders what might happen later."

However, Andy Pyle, the managing director of Shell Ireland, shrugged off the concerns yesterday, saying: "If you store pipes you obviously get some surface rusting - that is quite normal. We would obviously clean up the pipes before installation."

The laying of the pipeline to transport high-pressure gas from the Corrib field has been on hold after protests from several local landowners who did not want the pipeline built across their land. Shell said it was consulting them to modify the route and hopes to be able to build the onshore part of the pipeline in 2008, while the (larger) offshore bit could be laid next year. The pipeline would supply 60 per cent of Ireland's needs - the country currently imports 85 per cent of its gas supplies.

In May, Canon Hall highlighted his concerns in a letter to Mr Pyle, who wrote back admitting that the pipes had to be stored for longer than anticipated in Killybegs due to delays on the Corrib project. He said the pipes needed some reconditioning to have rust, dust and debris removed and to be prepared for the laying of the pipeline. Some of that work is now under way.

Mr Pyle wrote: "The observed corrosion of this high-quality steel is superficial, as demonstrated by regular ultrasonic inspection, and the condition of the pipe remains well within the design limits."

Canon Hall said at the annual meeting of the Anglo-Dutch company in the Hague in May: "Members of the board and shareholders would be up in arms themselves if what is done by our company in other lands were to be done in their own backyards." He said the corroded pipe issue formed part of wider concerns the ECCR had about Shell's record in countries such as Nigeria where the company has been fined for environmental damage to the Niger Delta from its oil exploration. He deplored the group's failure to consult shareholders on upcoming projects.

Meanwhile, BP is facing a growing political backlash in the US after documents emerged that appeared to show the company was warned about the pipeline corrosion problem that has crippled output at the Prudhoe Bay oilfield in Alaska.

"Our team's past experience designing the DHS's security command center as well as our extensive work for Customs and Border Protection (CBP) installing similar security systems and command centers along the entire northern U.S. border speaks to our ability to serve CBP effectively," said Wood Parker, president of Northrop Grumman IT's intelligence group.

Northrop Grumman will also design and implement four regional command centers to monitor security systems at each port of entry. These centers will allow designated personnel to survey port perimeters, secured areas, and the interactions between CBP personnel and the public at these critical facilities. The security solution includes surveillance, communications, video analytics, network and IT components, and data archival capabilities.

"Border security problems should be addressed with an integrated solution of processes, technology, infrastructure and rapid response capability, which will produce a comprehensive border protection system," said Tom Arnsmeyer, Northrop Grumman vice president and program manager. "Through our experience integrating large, complex programs, our integrated security solution for this contract will allow border agents to focus on what they do best: protecting our borders."

Northrop Grumman and its team will deliver a system that will identify potential threats at and to ports of entry; collect information through surveillance technologies; characterize and resolve threats through preventive measures and interdiction of cross border violations; tie sensing capabilities into a common operational picture, allowing surveillance of port activities at Customs Area Security Centers and other entry ports; and allow designated personnel to survey port perimeters, secured areas, and personnel interaction.

The contract is potentially valued at up to $33.7 million over five years, and was awarded by the General Services Administration (GSA) under the GSA Millennia contract.

Ms Flint said it was vital that patients' aftercare was given the same priority as the operation for which they were originally admitted. "There is no excuse for people coming into our hospitals not being fed properly," she told GMTV.

She said there were guidelines to ensure that hospitals - both nurses and management - targeted the problem.

And she pointed out that 85,000 extra nurses had been employed by the NHS. But in reference to malnutrition, she conceded: "I am afraid to say there are still places, probably too many, where this still happens."

New initiatives had been introduced, such as prioritised meal times, where nurses focused entirely on patients' eating, and "red tray" policies, where those patients with dietary problems were highlighted, she said.

The survey, which canvassed 500 nurses, found that 60% of older patients - who occupy two-thirds of general hospital beds - were at risk of becoming malnourished or seeing their health worsen.

Those aged over 80 were particularly at risk, having a rate of malnutrition five times higher than that for the under-50s, according to Age Concern.

Ms Flint said 40% of elderly people being admitted to hospital were already malnourished. She urged Age Concern to share its findings with the Department of Health to identify hospitals where malnutrition was a problem.

Age Concern's survey coincides with the launch of its campaign, Hungry To Be Heard, aimed at "ending the scandal of older people being malnourished in hospitals".

The director general, Gordon Lishman, said: "Hospitals are in danger of becoming bad for the health of older people.

"The majority of older patients are being denied some of the basic care they need, leaving hundreds of thousands of older patients malnourished."

He said it was "shocking" that Age Concern had to campaign for the implementation of simple measures.

"Food, and help with eating it, should be recognised by ward staff as an essential part of care, and they should be given time to perform this task, " he said.

The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) said the findings exposed the serious consequences of hospital understaffing.

Pauline Ford, the RCN adviser for older people, said: "This survey highlights just how serious the problem of under-staffing on many hospital wards has become and how, for so many nurses, time has become a luxury.

"It is unacceptable if patients are not getting the help they need to eat or drink.

"Nurses desperately want to be able to give the standards of care they were trained to give but need the support and resources to do so. Most importantly, they need to be given the time to care."

Jonathan Ellis, the senior policy manager at Help the Aged, said: "The fact that malnutrition is a stark reality among older people in a supposedly dignified and developed 21st century country is of great concern.

"Despite many nurses and doctors working against the odds to give their best, it would appear older people's needs are often the last to be met on overstretched wards.

"Lack of resources within the NHS means that many older people in a vulnerable position are neglected at a time they need help the most."

"Can the European Union carry on at this pace for long? Can Europe even take crucial decisions any more?" she asked.

"We need a more fundamental start, if we are to avoid the risk of a collapse of European construction, a slow and inexorable dilution," she said.

The 25-member EU faced many questions after the French and Dutch last year rejected by referendum a European constitutional treaty aimed at reforming the body's decision-making processes.

Cases brought in dozens of tribunals across France could last years and, if successful, force the state and the railway to pay millions of euros in compensation.

Many of the cases are being brought by pensioners who as children were interned in Drancy, the transit camp north of Paris known as the "antechamber of death" - from which about 67,000 Jews were sent to their deaths in the concentration camps. They were transported to the camp on the national railway system, often crammed into cattle trucks. SNCF classified them as third-class passengers and continued to send bills for their tickets even after the liberation of France.

Of the 330,000 Jews living in France in 1940, 75,721 were deported to death camps and only about 2,500 returned. For decades France refused to face up to accusations of its collaboration. In 1995 President Jacques Chirac made a historic admission that the Vichy government did bear a heavy responsibility in the deportation of France's Jews.

But it was only in June, when the French Green party MEP Alain Lipietz won a historic case against the state and SNCF, that families came forward. Mr Lipietz sought compensation after his father was taken to Drancy in 1944, aged 21. He was transported from Toulouse by SNCF train, travelling for more than 30 hours in a cattle truck crammed with 52 people without sanitation, one opening for air and only once given water by the Red Cross. He and three relatives survived the camp.

A Toulouse tribunal set a precedent when it awarded the Lipietz family €62,000 (£42,000) in damages, saying the transportation amounted to an "act of negligence of the state's responsibilities" and because SNCF never voiced "any objection" about transporting prisoners. SNCF is appealing against the ruling.

One of the complainants remembers spending her seventh birthday in Drancy. Others were hidden when their parents were rounded up. Some were born after the war to parents who escaped the camps. Not all are Jewish. One family's relative was a Spanish republican sent to the camps as a political prisoner.

A French pensioner said that in 1943 his parents sent his older sister, Odette, to Nice, hoping to save her life. In February 1944 she was denounced as Jewish by a newsagent, arrested and sent to Auschwitz where she died. When her mother heard of the deportation, her hair went white overnight and she suffered a mental breakdown. She died in a care home, still repeating: "My daughter Odette will be here soon."

Another complainant was born after the war to a Jewish woman who had survived the camp. She told her lawyer: "My mother came back with nothing, no family, no money. She was psychologically traumatised. She couldn't keep me with her so she put me in an orphanage. I have suffered all my life from it and that's why I am bringing this case."

SNCF declined to comment. In June its lawyer said the railway could not be held responsible because it had been forced to cooperate with German occupying forces.

Over the past 20 years, China's economy had grown by nearly 10 percent a year and experienced a total growth in real gross domestic product of over 500 percent, she said.

Importantly, the people of China had benefited greatly from its engagement with the rest of the world, with an estimated 377 million people lifted out of poverty.

"We are now, ourselves, major beneficiaries of China's rapid development. U.S. manufacturers, farmers and service providers have seen U.S. exports to China grow an average of 22 percent a year since China joined the WTO (World Trade Organization) in December of 2001, and U.S. consumers enjoy access to a wide array of high-quality, competitively priced products," said Schwab.

Schwab said few trade relationships were more important than that between the U.S. and China.

"And while we have issues that divide us in our bilateral trade relations, we still have fundamental interests in common," she said.

She also talked about the progress the United States and China had made in resolving trading disputes and issues through "quiet" conversations.

Citing as an example, she said China agreed in April to reopen its market to U.S. beef, and also to eliminate duplicate testing and certification requirements for imported medical equipment, and to improve market access for telecommunications service providers.

In addition, China announced that its computer manufacturers would be required to install legal operating system software on all computers before they left the factory, and committed to close optical disc plants that produced pirated CDs and DVDs.

"These are important steps on the road to addressing a very tough IPR situation, and every step that brings tangible results counts," she said.

"These and other initiatives show that as major trading partners in a mature relationship, the U.S. and China can work together to resolve concerns and improve commercial ties."