SHARM EL-SHEIKH (July 16 2009): More than 50 heads of state from the developing world met Wednesday in Egypt to tackle the fallout from the global economic meltdown, with calls for a "new world order" to prevent a repeat of the crisis. Cuban President Raul Castro said in a speech at the opening session of the Non-Aligned Movement summit that the financial crisis had hit developing nations the hardest.

"Every country in the world must seek just solutions to the global economic crisis," Castro told the 118-member body at the gathering in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. "We call for a new monetary and economic world order... we must restructure the world financial system to take into consideration the needs of developing countries." Global power dynamics also need to be addressed, Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi said, demanding a restructuring of the UN Security Council which he branded a form of terrorism "monopolised by a few countries that are permanent members."

"This represents a danger toward international peace. We have suffered all sorts of harm from the Security Council, it has become a sword over our necks," he said. "The Security Council is terrorism." Kadhafi said he wanted to correct the imbalance at the Security Council, demanding a permanent seat for the 53-member African Union, which he chairs. India said members should play a bigger role on the world stage.

"Decision-making processes, whether in the United Nations or the international financial institutions continue to be based on charters written more than 60 years ago, though the world has changed greatly since then," Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said. "Developing countries must be fully represented in the decision-making levels of international institutions," Singh said.

But the developing world's military ambitions looked set to steal the summit limelight, with nuclear-armed South Asian foes India and Pakistan to hold talks on Thursday aimed at relaunching stalled peace talks. New Delhi and Islamabad's fraught relations deteriorated after terror attacks in the Indian commercial capital Mumbai in November last year which killed 166 people. The attacks were blamed by India on the banned Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba, and Pakistan has acknowledged they were partially planned on its soil.

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2009