Archive for April 2nd, 2008
A ‘perfect storm’ of hunger
A ‘perfect storm’ of hunger
The U.N.’s World Food Program is struggling as costs of food and fuel skyrocket while the numbers of people needing help surge across the globe. Millions are in danger.
Pascal Joannes’ job is to find grains, beans and oils to fill a food basket for Sudan’s neediest people, from Darfur refugees to schoolchildren in the barren south.
“White beans at $1,160,” the white-haired Belgian, 52, cries in despair over the price of a metric ton. “Complete madness! I bought them two years ago in Ethiopia for $235.”
Joannes is head of procurement in Sudan for the World Food Program, the United Nations agency in charge of alleviating world hunger.
Meteoric food and fuel prices, a slumping dollar, the demand for biofuels and a string of poor harvests have combined to abruptly multiply WFP’s operating costs, even as needs increase. In other words, if the number of needy people stayed constant, it would take much more money to feed them. But the number of people needing help is surging dramatically. It is what WFP Executive Director Josette Sheeran calls “a perfect storm” hitting the world’s hungry.
The agency last month issued an emergency appeal for money to cover a shortfall tallied at more than half a billion dollars and growing. It said it might have to reduce food rations or cut people off altogether.
The most vulnerable are people like those in Sudan, whom Joannes is struggling to feed and who rely heavily, perhaps exclusively, on the aid. But at least as alarming, WFP officials say, is the emerging community of newly needy.
These are the people who once ate three meals a day and could afford nominal healthcare or to send their children to school. They are more likely to live in urban areas and buy most of their food in a market.
They are the urban poor in Afghanistan, where the government has asked for urgent help. They are families in Central America, who have been getting by on remittances from relatives abroad, but who can no longer make ends meet as the price of corn and beans nearly doubles.
“This is largely a new caseload,” John Aylieff, the emergency coordinator for the WFP’s assessment division, said at the agency’s Rome headquarters.
Aylieff and his staff assess the vulnerability of people in 121 countries. About 40 of the nations have been judged to be at risk of serious hunger, or already suffering from it.
The criteria include: how much does the country rely on imported food; how large is the urban population; what is the current rate of inflation, and what portion of their income do families spend on food (in Burundi, for example, it’s 77%; in the U.S. it’s 10%).
In the short term, officials predict food riots and political unrest, as has occurred in recent weeks in Pakistan, Indonesia and Egypt. In Egypt, shortages of government- subsidized bread recently triggered strikes, demonstrations and violence in which seven people died.
In the longer term, overall health worsens and education levels decline.
“Finally they end up selling their productive assets [and] that pretty much means they will remain economically destitute, even when things come back to normal,” said Arif Husain, senior program advisor for the assessment division, who recently moved to the WFP’s Rome headquarters after years in Sudan.
Countries are taking steps to avert widespread hunger. Some, like Egypt and Indonesia, have quickly expanded subsidies; others, like China, have banned exports of precious commodities.
Afghanistan was the first country to request urgent help. President Hamid Karzai in January asked the agency to feed an additional 2.5 million people, most of them urban poor, in addition to the 5 million rural people the agency already feeds.
In Kabul, the Afghan capital, Abdul Fatah and his wife Nooriya raise their five children on her teacher’s salary; he lost his government job a year ago.
“Life is getting harder day by day,” said Fatah, who is 45 but looks far older. “We cannot even buy meat once a month.”
Kabul homemaker Mahmooda Sharif, a mother of three, said that instead of eating meat twice a week, her family can now afford it only twice a month. The cost of food competes with school expenses and medical bills. She has delayed dental visits because she can’t afford them.
Salvadorans need twice the money to buy the same amount of food they could purchase a year ago, meaning their nutritional sustenance is cut in half, the WFP says.
“My children ask for food, and how can I not feed them? They ask for some eggs, beans, and I give it to them,” said Maria De Las Mercedes Ramirez, a 41-year-old mother of five. “I, as the mother, will eat less.”
The Ramirezes are one of about 70 families living in shacks on a desolate coffee plantation near the town of Taltapanca, abandoned more than a decade ago when coffee prices took a dive. Most of the families are run by mothers; the fathers have left to find work in the Salvadoran capital, or out of the country.
Ramirez lives on about $80 a month that comes from wages her husband sends and the little she can eke from an occasional job pruning coffee plants. What Ramirez spends on corn has shot up more than 50% in the last few months, cooking oil is up 75%, and beans have doubled in price.
Many families rely heavily on schools that give students one meal a day.
“You can see a lot of concern in their faces when they come to pick up their kids,” principal Delsy Amilia Chavez said of the mothers. “And some of the mothers are anemic. They can’t afford to eat beans and aren’t getting the iron they need.”
The school meals are provided by the WFP, but the agency is transferring the program to the government and reports that some schools have been unable to continue them.
Carlo Scaramella, the WFP country director in El Salvador, said hurricanes and drought last year added an additional 160,000 people to the 100,000 that the agency was already feeding. One million are at risk, he said.
In Egypt, President Hosni Mubarak ordered army-owned bakeries that produce 1.2 million loaves a day to pour more bread onto the general market.
The government also allocated almost $1 billion to bread subsidies for 2008. It subsidizes 210 million loaves of flat round bread a day, the main item on most Egyptians’ daily menu. As commodity prices soared, subsidized bread became precious, and fights broke out in queues at bakeries and stores.
The price of unsubsidized bread has gone up 10 times, and rice doubled in a single week, said Farag Wahba Ahmed, an official with Egypt’s Chamber of Commerce.
In Sudan, where the WFP oversees the largest emergency food operation in the world, aid officials are drafting contingency plans for coping with a smaller supply. In Darfur, especially, they must tread carefully.
“There’s no way we can come in and say, ‘We have no more food,’ ” Joannes said. “It would create riots.”
Darfur, the beleaguered region in western Sudan, accounts for three-fourths of the WFP’s operation here, which in total distributes 632,000 metric tons of food valued at $700 million to 5.6 million people (more than in Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Indonesia combined).
The WFP has sought to lower costs by turning to regional markets to buy food. Buying from local farmers helps the budget since it eliminates shipping costs. But because the WFP is such a big buyer, it has to be careful not to distort the market.
A 30% increase in costs in Sudan in the last four months is blamed chiefly on rising prices for locally produced sorghum. The WFP is already absorbing 6% of the national production and fears that buying more would destabilize the market.
Joannes boasts that he found a good deal recently on a mix of lentils from Ethiopia, buying them for only $700 a metric ton, far less than the going rate for white beans. But bargains are hard to find.
Back in Rome, Nicole Menage, head of the food procurement service, receives daily, sometimes hourly, reports on rising prices and falling reserves. It’s like a mammoth board game, with multiple moving pieces.
She and her associates last year managed to find in China 12,000 tons of maize needed urgently in nearby North Korea. Then, suddenly, China slapped on an export ban and the agency ended up finding the maize in Tanzania.
“The only tool we have is to stretch the net as far as possible,” she said.
Sanders reported from Khartoum and Wilkinson from Rome. Special correspondent M. Karim Faiez in Kabul, Noha El-Hennawy of The Times’ Cairo Bureau and special correspondent Alex Renderos in Taltapanca contributed to this report.
Kissinger’s 1974 Plan for Food Control Genocide
This article appeared as part of a feature in the December 8, 1995 issue of Executive Intelligence Review. See Feature Introduction and Table of Contents.
Kissinger’s 1974 Plan for
Food Control Genocide
by Joseph Brewda
On Dec. 10, 1974, the U.S. National Security Council under Henry Kissinger completed a classified 200-page study, “National Security Study Memorandum 200: Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for U.S. Security and Overseas Interests.” The study falsely claimed that population growth in the so-called Lesser Developed Countries (LDCs) was a grave threat to U.S. national security. Adopted as official policy in November 1975 by President Gerald Ford, NSSM 200 outlined a covert plan to reduce population growth in those countries through birth control, and also, implicitly, war and famine. Brent Scowcroft, who had by then replaced Kissinger as national security adviser (the same post Scowcroft was to hold in the Bush administration), was put in charge of implementing the plan. CIA Director George Bush was ordered to assist Scowcroft, as were the secretaries of state, treasury, defense, and agriculture.
The bogus arguments that Kissinger advanced were not original. One of his major sources was the Royal Commission on Population, which King George VI had created in 1944 “to consider what measures should be taken in the national interest to influence the future trend of population.” The commission found that Britain was gravely threatened by population growth in its colonies, since “a populous country has decided advantages over a sparsely-populated one for industrial production.” The combined effects of increasing population and industrialization in its colonies, it warned, “might be decisive in its effects on the prestige and influence of the West,” especially effecting “military strength and security.”
NSSM 200 similarly concluded that the United States was threatened by population growth in the former colonial sector. It paid special attention to 13 “key countries” in which the United States had a “special political and strategic interest”: India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Turkey, Nigeria, Egypt, Ethiopia, Mexico, Brazil, and Colombia. It claimed that population growth in those states was especially worrisome, since it would quickly increase their relative political, economic, and military strength.
For example, Nigeria: “Already the most populous country on the continent, with an estimated 55 million people in 1970, Nigeria’s population by the end of this century is projected to number 135 million. This suggests a growing political and strategic role for Nigeria, at least in Africa.” Or Brazil: “Brazil clearly dominated the continent demographically.” The study warned of a “growing power status for Brazil in Latin America and on the world scene over the next 25 years.”
Food as a weapon
There were several measures that Kissinger advocated to deal with this alleged threat, most prominently, birth control and related population-reduction programs. He also warned that “population growth rates are likely to increase appreciably before they begin to decline,” even if such measures were adopted.
A second measure was curtailing food supplies to targetted states, in part to force compliance with birth control policies: “There is also some established precedent for taking account of family planning performance in appraisal of assistance requirements by AID [U.S. Agency for International Development] and consultative groups. Since population growth is a major determinant of increases in food demand, allocation of scarce PL 480 resources should take account of what steps a country is taking in population control as well as food production. In these sensitive relations, however, it is important in style as well as substance to avoid the appearance of coercion.”
“Mandatory programs may be needed and we should be considering these possibilities now,” the document continued, adding, “Would food be considered an instrument of national power? … Is the U.S. prepared to accept food rationing to help people who can’t/won’t control their population growth?”
Kissinger also predicted a return of famines that could make exclusive reliance on birth control programs unnecessary. “Rapid population growth and lagging food production in developing countries, together with the sharp deterioration in the global food situation in 1972 and 1973, have raised serious concerns about the ability of the world to feed itself adequately over the next quarter of century and beyond,” he reported.
The cause of that coming food deficit was not natural, however, but was a result of western financial policy: “Capital investments for irrigation and infrastucture and the organization requirements for continuous improvements in agricultural yields may be beyond the financial and administrative capacity of many LDCs. For some of the areas under heaviest population pressure, there is little or no prospect for foreign exchange earnings to cover constantly increasingly imports of food.”
“It is questionable,” Kissinger gloated, “whether aid donor countries will be prepared to provide the sort of massive food aid called for by the import projections on a long-term continuing basis.” Consequently, “large-scale famine of a kind not experienced for several decades—a kind the world thought had been permanently banished,” was foreseeable—famine, which has indeed come to pass.
http://www.larouchepub.com/other/1995/2249_kissinger_food.html
UK plane in Iraq hit by giant ‘fireball’
UK plane in Iraq hit by giant ‘fireball’
Wednesday, 2 April, 2008
The inquest into the death of an Australian and nine British servicemen in Iraq has heard dramatic accounts from eyewitnesses who saw their plane shot down by insurgents.
Several US and British servicemen who were serving in Iraq at the time of the crash as well as a local Iraqi man have described how they saw the Hercules C-130 hit by a giant “fireball”.
The US and UK servicemen, who have all had their identities suppressed, detailed in written statements read out to the court how they saw the Hercules flying at low level north of Baghdad moments before it was hit by groundfire from insurgents on the afternoon of January 30, 2005.
Melbourne-born Flight Lieutenant Paul Pardoel was working as a navigator on board the Royal Air Force (RAF) plane along with nine other British servicemen when it was hit. There were no survivors.
One National Guard soldier, known as witness C, said he believed the plane was flying at between 300 and 500 metres off the ground when it was struck.
“I saw what I would describe as a fireball come from the ground at an angle of about 45 degrees and head towards the aircraft,” witness C said.
“I believe it took no more than five seconds until the fireball hit the centre of the plane between the two wings. I didn’t see the plane again.”
Another US serviceman, witness D, said he saw a smoke trail which “flew straight up into the plane” from the ground before the Hercules crashed to the ground about 12 to 15 seconds later.
“It looked as if the plane entered the explosion and disappeared,” witness D said.
A British serviceman, witness K, described how he spoke with an Iraqi man who claimed to have witnessed the crash from his uncle’s farm.
The serviceman, who speaks Arabic, said the man told him there had been “a lot of insurgent activity around the area” and “numerous small arms fire” in the area just hours before the Hercules came under attack.
The Iraqi man had heard gunfire at the time the Hercules was flying nearby and then saw the aircraft on fire moments later.
“It appeared to him that the aircraft was trying to land as it was attempting to lower its landing gear,” witness K said.
“It began to bank to the left and its tail moved forward and caused its nose to dive.”
Earlier in an opening address by coroner David Masters, the inquest heard how just six minutes after taking off from Baghdad airport, the Hercules’ radio operator Lance Corporal Steven Jones sent out a desperate call.
Moments after the plane was hit, he radioed, “No duff, no duff, we are on fire, we are on fire” to alert British officials that the plane was involved in a genuine emergency rather than a drill exercise. Communications with the plane were then lost.
Flt Lt Pardoel had transferred to the RAF from the Royal Australian Air Force. He had handed in his resignation to his British bosses shortly before the crash.
The inquest, which is expected to last four weeks, continues.
http://news.sbs.com.au/worldnewsaustralia/uk_plane_in_iraq_hit_by_giant_fireball_544050
As Jobs Vanish and Prices Rise, Food Stamp Use Nears Record
As Jobs Vanish and Prices Rise, Food Stamp Use Nears Record
Driven by a painful mix of layoffs and rising food and fuel prices, the number of Americans receiving food stamps is projected to reach 28 million in the coming year, the highest level since the aid program began in the 1960s.
The number of recipients, who must have near-poverty incomes to qualify for benefits averaging $100 a month per family member, has fluctuated over the years along with economic conditions, eligibility rules, enlistment drives and natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina, which led to a spike in the South.
But recent rises in many states appear to be resulting mainly from the economic slowdown, officials and experts say, as well as inflation in prices of basic goods that leave more families feeling pinched. Citing expected growth in unemployment, the Congressional Budget Office this month projected a continued increase in the monthly number of recipients in the next fiscal year, starting Oct. 1 — to 28 million, up from 27.8 million in 2008, and 26.5 million in 2007.
The percentage of Americans receiving food stamps was higher after a recession in the 1990s, but actual numbers are expected to be higher this year.
Federal benefit costs are projected to rise to $36 billion in the 2009 fiscal year from $34 billion this year.
“People sign up for food stamps when they lose their jobs, or their wages go down because their hours are cut,” said Stacy Dean, director of food stamp policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in Washington, who noted that 14 states saw their rolls reach record numbers by last December.
One example is Michigan, where one in eight residents now receives food stamps. “Our caseload has more than doubled since 2000, and we’re at an all-time record level,” said Maureen Sorbet, spokeswoman for the Michigan Department of Human Services.
The climb in food stamp recipients there has been relentless, through economic upturns and downturns, reflecting a steady loss of industrial jobs that has pushed recipient levels to new highs in Ohio and Illinois as well.
“We’ve had poverty here for a good while,” Ms. Sorbet said. Contributing to the rise, she added, Michigan, like many other states, has also worked to make more low-end workers aware of their eligibility, and a switch from coupons to electronic debit cards has reduced the stigma.
Some states have experienced more recent surges. From December 2006 to December 2007, more than 40 states saw recipient numbers rise, and in several — Arizona, Florida, Maryland, Nevada, North Dakota and Rhode Island — the one-year growth was 10 percent or more.
In Rhode Island, the number of recipients climbed by 18 percent over the last two years, to more than 84,000 as of February, or about 8.4 percent of the population. This is the highest total in the last dozen years or more, said Bob McDonough, the state’s administrator of family and adult services, and reflects both a strong enlistment effort and an upward creep in unemployment.
In New York, a program to promote enrollment increased food stamp rolls earlier in the decade, but the current climb in applications appears in part to reflect economic hardship, said Michael Hayes, spokesman for the Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance. The additional 67,000 clients added from July 2007 to January of this year brought total recipients to 1.86 million, about one in 10 New Yorkers.
Nutrition and poverty experts praise food stamps as a vital safety net that helped eliminate the severe malnutrition seen in the country as recently as the 1960s. But they also express concern about what they called the gradual erosion of their value.
Food stamps are an entitlement program, with eligibility guidelines set by Congress and the federal government paying for benefits while states pay most administrative costs.
Eligibility is determined by a complex formula, but basically recipients must have few assets and incomes below 130 percent of the poverty line, or less than $27,560 for a family of four.
As a share of the national population, food stamp use was highest in 1994, after several years of poor economic growth, with an average of 27.5 million recipients per month from a lower total of residents. The numbers plummeted in the late 1990s as the economy grew and legal immigrants and certain others were excluded.
But access by legal immigrants has been partly restored and, in the current decade, the federal and state governments have used advertising and other measures to inform people of their eligibility and have often simplified application procedures.
Because they spend a higher share of their incomes on basic needs like food and fuel, low-income Americans have been hit hard by soaring gasoline and heating costs and jumps in the prices of staples like milk, eggs and bread.
At the same time, average family incomes among the bottom fifth of the population have been stagnant or have declined in recent years at levels around $15,500, said Jared Bernstein, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington.
The benefit levels, which can amount to many hundreds of dollars for families with several children, are adjusted each June according to the price of a bare-bones “thrifty food plan,” as calculated by the Department of Agriculture. Because food prices have risen by about 5 percent this year, benefit levels will rise similarly in June — months after the increase in costs for consumers.
Advocates worry more about the small but steady decline in real benefits since 1996, when the “standard deduction” for living costs, which is subtracted from family income to determine eligibility and benefit levels, was frozen. If that deduction had continued to rise with inflation, the average mother with two children would be receiving an additional $37 a month, according to the private Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
Both houses of Congress have passed bills that would index the deduction to the cost of living, but the measures are part of broader agriculture bills that appear unlikely to pass this year because of disagreements with the White House over farm policy.
Another important federal nutrition program known as WIC, for women, infants and children, is struggling with rising prices of milk and cheese, and growing enrollment.
The program, for households with incomes no higher than 185 percent of the federal poverty level, provides healthy food and nutrition counseling to 8.5 million pregnant women, and children through the age of 4. WIC is not an entitlement like food stamps, and for the fiscal year starting in October, Congress may have to approve a large increase over its current budget of $6 billion if states are to avoid waiting lists for needy mothers and babies.
Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company
