Blair harps on addressing poverty and climate change

London, Mar 27 (UNI) British Prime Minister Tony Blair, during his visit to Australia cited global poverty and the threat of climate change as some of the pressing issues facing the world.

He pointed out that while Britain supported the Kyoto protocol on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, Australia had not.

He said protection of European agriculture markets was ''a policy born of another age and it's time to end it''. But change in Europe alone would not be enough, Mr Blair said adding, ''America must open up, Japan too and ... we look to leadership from Brazil, India''. He stressed, ''And we must agree (on) a development package for the poorest that includes 100 percent market access and aid for trade''.

Mr Blair made a plea for an international alliance to protect ''global values'' of fairness, justice and freedom. He pledged to keep British troops in Iraq and Afghanistan until those countries were stabilised. ''If the going is tough, we tough it out,'' Mr Blair told a rare joint sitting of Australia's Parliament in Canberra.

Mr Blair told Australian politicians that the ''immediate threat was from Islamist extremism,'' which he said was ''not a passing spasm of anger, but a global ideology at war with us and our way of life''. He pointed out, ''If we want to secure our way of life, there is no alternative but to fight it out,'' he said. ''That means standing up for our values not just in our own countries but the world over,'' he added.

He said, the struggle was not just against ''those who hate us,'' but also against opponents who believe Britain and its allies fight for their values selectively. ''This struggle is about justice and fairness as well as security and prosperity,'' he said. ''And in truth today there is no prosperity without security and no security without justice. That is the consequence of an interconnected world,'' he pointed out.

He pointed to recent elections in both Iraq and Afghanistan as symbols of the values he was advocating and said those countries were ''engaged in a titanic struggle to be free of a legacy of oppression, stagnation and servitude''.

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