World leaders open a UN summit here Wednesday to rally the world behind a blueprint for eradicating poverty and protecting the environment

World leaders open a UN summit here Wednesday to rally the world behind a blueprint for eradicating poverty and protecting the environment.

 
Some 92 leaders, including the host, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, and UN chief Ban Ki-moon are attending the Rio+20 summit on sustainable development.
  
The high-profile event comes 20 years after Rio's first Earth Summit, when nations vowed to roll back climate change, desertification and species loss.
  
The meeting is set to get under way at 10:00 am (1300 GMT) with the screening of a short film titled "State of the Planet" and a statement by the UN secretary general.
  
Some 191 speakers are expected to take the floor until Friday, when leaders will close the 10-day UN conference by giving their seal of approval to a 53-page document agreed by their negotiators Tuesday.

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has arrived in Brazil on Wednesday on the second leg of his tour of three Latin American countries to attend the Rio+20 Summit.

Ahmadinejad stopped in Bolivia en route to Brazil and was welcomed by his Bolivian counterpart Evo Morales at the El Alto airport on Tuesday.
At his airport welcome, more than 100 indigenous protesters waved Bolivian and Iranian flags, with one local farmer holding a banner reading "Yes to Iran's nuclear program."

After the Rio summit, Ahmadinejad will then travel to Venezuela on the last leg of his South American tour to meet Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.