New York ? America can fight terrorism around the globe but can’t eliminate it without stopping the poverty and despair that helps create terrorists, participants said Friday on the second day of the World Economic Forum.

“We have to show people who might move in the direction of terrorism that there is a better way,” Secretary of State Colin Powell told movers and shakers from around the world, who are discussing the globe’s biggest problems at a Manhattan hotel.

There were few demonstrations on the streets surrounding the Waldorf-Astoria hotel where the forum was being held. But the forum’s Web site crashed Friday morning and three groups of cyber-activists claimed responsibility. They called themselves Electronic Civil Disobedience, Electronic Disturbance Theater and the Federation of Random Action.

The forum is billed as a place for the world’s leaders to find solutions to some of the planet’s most vexing problems. Powell and Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, who also spoke Friday, were the top U.S. officials at the five-day conference.

About 4,000 police officers remained posted on New York’s streets to prevent violence near the forum site, outnumbering the nearly 3,000 celebrities and corporate and political leaders participating.

Powell, speaking at a panel on building a coalition for a stable world, said the United States is just beginning its campaign against terrorism and will “make sure we root it out, wherever it exists.”

But America will also help countries solve problems that make them hotbeds for terrorism, Powell added. He cited Afghanistan, where he said the United States will continue humanitarian efforts to rebuild the shattered country.

“As we fight terrorism, using military means and legal means and law enforcement and intelligence means and going after the financial infrastructure of terrorist organizations, we also have to put hope back in the hearts of people,” Powell said.