Alarcón was speaking at a meeting of about 300 people, held here September 19 at the Church of the Intercession. He and Cuban foreign minister Felipe Pérez Roque, who also addressed the meeting briefly, were in New York to take part in a United Nations summit meeting of world leaders.

Noting that Washington has refused to respond to Cuba’s offer to send a group of volunteer doctors to any part of the Gulf Coast region where they could be of assistance, he said the doctors have now been constituted into a longer-term contingent that will be ready to provide medical services in any country in the world ravaged by natural disasters or epidemics, such as the AIDS pandemic in Africa.

The Cuban leader, repeating themes he had raised in his speech to the UN summit, noted the cynicism of Washington and other industrialized powers that five years ago had proclaimed “lofty goals” at the so-called Millennium Summit. The just-concluded world meeting was supposed to review progress toward those objectives, including the reduction of the number of hungry people in the world in half by the year 2015. For the United Nations “that is a radical goal indeed,” Alarcón said. But now, he said, it was acknowledged that, even without conditions worsening, such a goal would not be realized until at least 2150.

The world leaders decided to avoid this question, however, and instead deflected the discussion to “reform of the United Nations,” meaning efforts by Washington to reinforce further the veto power of the main imperialist powers in that body.

Alarcón reiterated Havana’s demand that Washington extradite CIA-trained murderer Luis Posada Carriles to Venezuela and release five Cuban revolutionaries who remain locked up in U.S. prisons.
 
 
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Venezuela's president addresses 400 in N.Y.  
 
 
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