The easily fixable problems afflicting the developing world are missing from our radar, says Gerry Adams.

Question: What story is missing from the news?

Gerry Adams: Well the big issue which doesn’t actually get the focus that it requires are issues of global poverty in the developing world. There are still babies dying of diarrhea. And even the length of time that it takes us to do this interview, maybe 10,000 babies will have died from curable diseases.

The news media has been dumbed down in many ways and deals with with celebrity and trivial or superficial matters; maybe it’s a bird which needs to be fed. There’s so much media that deals with big atrocities or conflict situations.

But beneath all of that are issues, which I firmly believe, that people knew that a child diarrhea can be cured for two cents. Two cents. A small sachet of salt and sugar will stop a child from dying of diarrhea. If people knew that they would do something about it.

Recorded on: Oct 8, 2007