President, First Lady Back Global Literacy to Fight ‘Hopelessness’

New York

President Bush said last week that ensuring that people can read and write is one way to combat poverty and “radicalism” in the world.

“One reason radicals are able to recruit young men, for example, to become suicide bombers, is because of hopelessness,” the president said here at a White House-sponsored conference on global literacy. “One way to defeat hopelessness is through literacy—is to giving people the fantastic hope that comes by being able to...