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New York - The final count is in.

More than 116 million people demonstrated around the world last weekend in a renewed effort to fight poverty, the United Nations said Wednesday.

The Guiness World Records certified the figures provided by anti-poverty campaigners who organized the events in 131 countries Friday through Sunday.

The demonstration was prompted by growing concern that poverty is being aggravated by continued high food prices.

Washington - Democratic White House hopeful Barack Obama Wednesday refuted attacks by Republican rival John McCain that he was advocating socialism by wanting to raise taxes on the wealthier, saying the McCain campaign was grasping at desperate straws.

Over the past week, McCain, 72, who is lagging behind Obama in the backstretch to the November 4 elections, has drawn enthusiastic "boos" from supporters whenever he mentions that Obama wants to "spread the wealth."

Washington - Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf said her country was on track to become a strong and democratic economy after more than a decade of civil war, and welcomed US help after a meeting with President George W Bush.

Bush, who travelled to Liberia earlier this year, said the African nation still needed help from both the US and other countries, as it rebuilds its institutions following the ouster of long-time leader Charles Taylor in 2003.

NATO ships have arrived off the Somali coast to begin escorting relief convoys for Somalia, which has lost critical food supplies from the World Food Programme (WFP) to pirates in the past year, the UN said Wednesday.

WFP, backed by the Somali government, requested military vessel escorts to thwart future hijacking of cargo ships carrying food and medicine supplies for Somalia.

The UN Security Council earlier this month authorized use of force by UN members to fight the wave of piracy and armed robbery endangering cargo ships as well as luxury cruise ships plying the waters off Somalia.

Brasilia - The Brazilian government on Wednesday authorized the country's main state financial institutions - the Bank of Brazil and the Federal Economic Bank 
(CEF) - to acquire stakes in private banks as a temporary lifeline to the struggling sector.

The move - very similar to one that British Prime Minister Gordon Brown adopted recently - also allows the nationalization of banks that are facing financial difficulties in the light of the ongoing international crisis.

The new disposition authorized the Bank of Brazil and the CEF to create investment banks and subsidiaries abroad, and allows the Brazilian Central Bank to exchange reals for currency of other countries in direct negotiations with other central banks.