Less than meets the eye_其他_趣味英语-查字典英语网

Less than meets the eye

Suppress, for a moment, the thought that the term itself went out of fashion long ago. This still seems a plausible time to consider the idea. While the rich world stumbles out of recession, Asia, Africa and Latin America are accelerating and contributing more than ever to world output. Two fast-growing countries, Turkey and Brazil (“powers of the future”, says Iran’s president), struck a deal in May that was intended to break the deadlock over Iran’s nuclear programme. Though less than meets the eye, the agreement was still an intriguing case of emerging-nation diplomacy. And the football World Cup gets under way this week in South Africa, arguably the poorest country to host the event.

Yet at the same time, Mr Zoellick’s bank is not in any danger of going out of business. Aid still flows. Last month Western donors were debating whether an increase of nearly $14 billion in aid to Africa over the past five years was enough. Whatever you call it, the category still matters (“third world” later became “developing countries” or “less developed countries”). It matters for trade, to non-governmental organizations and in the United Nations. Poor countries are treated differently under the UN framework convention on climate change, for instance, with fewer commitments to cut emissions. The European Union has a special trade and aid agreement with 79 poor nations. The world is still split between haves and have-nots (though the group of seven richest haves is now a group of 20 of them). Not surprisingly, many NGOs dislike Mr Zoellick’s assertion because, they fear, it will encourage Westerners to ignore poverty abroad.