Millions around globe stand up against poverty: UN

United Nations, Oct 18: School children in Gaza, cricket fans in India and African church-goers have helped set a Guinness world record for ''the largest number of people to stand up against poverty,''' UN officials said.

The record was set when 23,542,614 people stood up as part of 11,646 organized events around the world during a 24-hour period this week, according to the official Guinnessverification text, released at a UN news conference.

The ''stand up'' campaign was organized to promote the achievement by 2015 of a series of anti-poverty goals set at the Millennium Summit in 2000. It was timed to coincide with yesterday's UN International Day for Poverty Eradication.

''Extreme poverty is a stain on human dignity,'' French UN Ambassador Jean-Marc de la Sabliere told reporters. ''We must make sure this problem remains on the top of the UN agenda.'' Guinness also verified that the campaign constituted ''the largest single coordinated movement of people'' in Guinness history, senior U.N. official Shashi Tharoor said.

Among the participants were 38,000 cricket fans in Jaipur, India; hundreds of thousands attending an anti-poverty concert in Harare, Zimbabwe; school children in Lebanon, Jordan, the Palestinian Gaza and the West Bank; churches across Africa, and hundreds of thousands watching soccer matches in Mexico, the United Nations said.

Reuters