Virgo
When is the last time you can remember Americans hoarding food or even see it rationed at the local super market?
Around the world, there have been food riots from Haiti to the Ivory Coast. In Egypt, the government called out troops to make bread. This year alone, rice prices have risen 141% - capping the sharpest rise of food prices in history. Paying such exorbitant prices for life's basic essentials dramatically cuts funds available to families for urgent needs like health care, education and transportation.
Each day thousands of families are falling back into poverty, unable to keep up with the dramatic and unconscionable increases. Hunger is becoming commonplace again in countries that have historically not experienced it on such a scale in decades.
The World Food Program (WFP) estimates that over 100 million people could be seriously impacted by this latest crisis. This dilemma cries out for American leadership and funds before the situation reaches such a level that it leads to international instability and chaos in critical nations.
The Economist suggests that infusing the WFP with an additional $700 million would go a long way to easing the crisis. We should immediately support that proposal and allocate funds.
After all, that is only about three days of the cost of the war in Iraq...
Originally published on DavidMixner.com
COMMENTS (1)
RATE THIS STORY
Nude photos of the MTV reality star surfaced on the...
After days, weeks and month’s of speculation the announcement finally came. Since...
Comments
Re: 100 Million People Face Food Crisis
By Bud Oracle (not verified), May 2, 2008 at 10:18David, another well written article expressing the state of the world currently, as any good correspondent would write it, leaving out their personal BS. This is sure to garner a point of view expressed passionately from an Oracle who can’t seem to remain unopinionated.
So let me explain how this situation that you paint frustrates me.
“While the American political process is enthralled by increasingly petty issues,”
I’ve been thinking about this since seeing the Vietnam madness in the sixties, demonstrating against the nuclear blast in Alaska and banned from Amerika for 17 years. Here’s something I’ve seen during several enhanced states over two decades. I finally was encouraged to write it by the Editor of the English version of Al Jazeerah (now defunct) Who knows about its validity, but it’s an Oracle’s perspective and worth considering http://www.orato.com/health-science/2008/04/24/do-humans-have-political-...
“Paying such exorbitant prices for life's basic essentials dramatically cuts funds available to families for urgent needs like health care, education and transportation.”
I’ve seen this coming since the mid seventies when I read “the Silent Spring.” Then I switched from chemicals to control weeds in my vineyard, to a hydraulically operated plow called a “grapehow.”
Later in Life, when I felt the urge to go back to school in the early 90’s (when I was 40), I took sciences in grade 13, and an environment course which I was allowed to take in one year instead of the normal two. I tried hard and made the Dean’s list with a 4.0 average. The course was a training vehicle for a Ray government initiative to monitor industrial effluents. The MISA program was canceled when the Conservatives got into power and the companies were allowed to pollute to their heart’s content. All government ministries of the environment were downsized so that NAFTA could rule (and pollute.)
So, lately, I’m living what I preach and have given up my addiction to gasoline in January 2004. See the second LTE down, “tech and us” by me, Klaus Kaczor http://republic-news.org/archive/127-repub/127_letters.htm
Tell me David, why is everyone only getting interested now? Is there anyone doing anything activist any more, like in the sixties? I feel all alone. http://www.orato.com/current-events/2008/04/27/laugh-or-cry-story-not-li...
I know, it is your job to report, but I feel obliged to rant and act. Do you know where and how? Are there any grassroots movements getting going that are serious/effective, or has activism left our ken?