News In Brief

Clausen: some arms funds should go to fight famine

World Bank president A. W. Clausen said Wednesday that rich nations will, for the first time, spend more than $1 trillion on military supplies next year and urged that some of the money be funneled to the poor, especially in drought-stricken Africa.

''Compared to what nations are spending on military means of maintaining security, it would cost relatively little to expand the opportunities for poor people around the world to raise their standards of living,'' he said in the prepared text of a speech to the National Press Club. The total amount projected in arms spending in 1985, he said, ''is far more than the total income of the bottom half of humanity.''