GEORGETOWN, Guyana (CMC):

With poverty trending back to 1980s levels and adolescents swelling the ranks of the poor in Latin America and the Caribbean, President Bharrat Jagdeo warned that social discontent will threaten the security and stability of the hemisphere.

Addressing last week's opening ceremony of the 19th summit of the Rio Group in Georgetown, Jagdeo, citing a recent Economic Commission of Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) study, noted that some 209 million or 39.8 per cent of the Latin American and Caribbean population live in poverty, with 53 million chronically hungry.

He said the ECLAC study which portrayed very "grim statistics" on human and social development challenges in Latin America and the Caribbean, identified a further 81 million or 15.4 per cent of the hemisphere's peoples existing as indigents. Of these, 15 million are adolescents, exposed to "highly inequitable" income levels.