The forum "ranked global poverty as the No 1 priority", noted the Observer column of the Financial Times, while the world economy was only eighth.
"Both Bush administration rhetoric and Kerry rhetoric emphasize keeping W.M.D. out of the hands of terrorists as a No.1 national security priority," noted Michèlle Flournoy of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
"As a general rule, people want to save for their own retirement as their No. 1 priority," noted Joseph Hurley, founder and chief executive of Savingforcollege.com, a Web site that compares and evaluates 529 plans.
Meanwhile, interviews with the ministry of planning and investment, which is responsible for regulation, reveal that the ministry "is aware of this situation but does not seem to consider that addressing this issue should be a priority", notes the ILO report.
The first priority noted by the Office of Management and Budget was to support health insurance reform by strengthening policy on the use of computerized records, financing research to compare the effectiveness of different medical treatments and creating health centers to get more care to populations that lack it, like the uninsured and American Indians.
The cable said public health and disease prevention are some of the State Department's highest priorities, noting US funding for global programs to fight HIV and Aids, malaria, tuberculosis, smallpox and polio and recent efforts to combat the Ebola virus.
"With Charm and Enticements, Army Is Drawing Hispanic Recruits, and Criticism" (news article, Feb. 9) points out that "recruiting Latinos has become one of the Army's top priorities," noting correctly some of the high-pressure tactics that recruiters use to target low-income youth in minority communities.
"It doesn't take into account the current fiscal environment, or competing priorities," notes Jon Retzlaff of the American Association for Cancer Research in Washington, D.C. "We try to be more credible and relevant when we go up to the Hill," he adds, citing the association's "ask" of a 5% annual increase for the next several years.
The key to being productive is knowing your priorities, notes Robert Pozen, a senior lecturer of business administration at Harvard Business School.
