Here is what you could do with $30 billion dollars (£21 billion at current rates of conversion), an average estimate for the cost of the National Missile Defence project

- Build 210 new hospitals

- Pay off the national debt of the world's 63 poorest countries - and still have a $1bn change!

- Employ one million nurses in the UK for a year (based on figures supplied by CND)

- Employ 714,000 teachers in the UK for a year (CND)

Repair all of the UK's crumbling schools - and still have something like £18 billion change (CND)

Updated: 16:42 Thursday, February 07, 2002