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Food Scarcity: The Timebomb Setting Nation Against Nation

Fri, 2012-10-19 15:44 — Kathy Gilbeaux

submitted by Paul G.Kaplan

        

A drying corn field in southern Minnesota. Bad weather has resulted in a poor harvest this year. Photograph: David I. Gross/ Corbis

As the UN and Oxfam warn of the dangers ahead, expert analyst Lester Brown says time to solve the problem is running out

guardian.co.uk - by John Vidal - October 13, 2012

Brandon Hunnicutt has had a year to remember. The young Nebraskan from Hamilton County farms 2,600 acres of the High Plains with his father and brother. What looked certain in an almost perfect May to be a "phenomenal" harvest of maize and soy beans has turned into a near disaster.

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Book - Full Planet, Empty Plates
http://www.earthpolicy.org/mobile/books/fpep

Oxfam Report - 'Our Land, Our Lives': Time Out on the Global Land Rush
http://policy-practice.oxfam.org.uk/publications/our-land-our-lives-time-out-on-the-global-land-rush-246731

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Agriculture
Climate
Drought
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Global Food Supply - We Need to Plan for System Failure

Wed, 2012-10-10 18:34 — Kathy Gilbeaux

ethicalcorp.com - by Mallen Baker - October 4, 2012

Mallen Baker argues that it’s irresponsible not to make contingency plans, especially when the potential failures concern the fundamentals – such as food

Imagine your critical business systems depend on one computer server. This server is huge – it has immense capacity – but you have grown into that space and now every single day you are pushing it to its limit. . .

. . . Now let’s substitute the global food system for the server. Here we have a system that is operating at full capacity. Any hiccups in normal production can lead to serious problems. This year we have seen such hiccups.

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Arctic Ice Melt, Sea Level Rise May Pose Imminent Threat To Island Nations, Climate Scientist Says

Sat, 2012-10-06 23:07 — Kathy Gilbeaux

      

This Sept. 16, 2012, image released by NASA shows the amount of summer sea ice in the Arctic, at center in white, and the 1979 to 2000 average extent for the day shown, with the yellow line. Scientists say sea ice in the Arctic shrank to an all-time low of 1.32 million square miles on Sept. 16, smashing old records for the critical climate indicator. (AP Photo/U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center, File)

huffingtonpost.com - by James Gerken - October 5, 2012

Low-lying island nations threatened by rising sea levels this century could see the disastrous consequences of climate change far sooner than expected, according to one of the world's leading climate scientists.

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Killers on the loose: the deadly viruses that threaten human survival

Tue, 2012-10-02 14:14 — Maeryn Obley

The Marburg virus: 'If tourists were tripping in and out of some python-infested Marburg repository, unprotected, and then boarding their return flights to other continents… it was an international threat.' Photograph: Science Photo Library

Image: The Marburg virus: 'If tourists were tripping in and out of some python-infested Marburg repository, unprotected, and then boarding their return flights to other continents… it was an international threat.' Photograph: Science Photo Library

guardian.co.uk - September 28th, 2012 - David Quammen

Astrid Joosten was a 41-year-old Dutch woman who, in June 2008, went to Uganda with her husband. At home in Noord-Brabant, she worked as a business analyst. Both she and her husband, Jaap Taal, a financial manager, enjoyed annual adventures, especially to Africa. The journey in 2008, booked through an adventure-travel outfitter, took them to the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, home to mountain gorillas.

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Global
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Contagion
Disaster Risk Reduction
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Sudan Refugees Flee Intensified Bombing Runs

Sun, 2012-09-23 21:13 — Kathy Gilbeaux

foxnews.com - Associated Press - September 19, 2012

Newly arrived refugees at a camp along the volatile South Sudan-Sudan border say renewed fighting between rebels and Sudan's military is likely to send thousands more people to an expanding camp here filled with refugees of war and hunger.

As the fighting intensified, tens of thousands began streaming into South Sudan. Since February, the population of Yida has skyrocketed from 17,000 to around 65,000 refugees.

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Video - MSF - An Improved Situation in Yida Camp, South Sudan

Sun, 2012-09-23 21:03 — Kathy Gilbeaux

youtube.com - September 18, 2012

After Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) scaled up its operations in Yida refugee camp in South Sudan, the mortality rate fell sharply in just one month.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=2GZYb6fP1N8

Location

United States
31° 43' 41.4012" N, 148° 32' 6.5616" W
See map: Google Maps, Yahoo! Maps, MapQuest
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Almost a billion go hungry worldwide

Wed, 2012-08-08 13:57 — Corey Watts

photo courtesy of Harry Borden/Oxfam

www.independent.co.uk - August 5, 2012 - by Sarah Morrison

An unparalleled number of severe food shortages has added 43 million to the number of people going hungry worldwide this year. And millions of children are now at risk of acute malnutrition, charities are warning. One week ahead of David Cameron's "hunger summit", they say that unless action is taken urgently, many more could fall victim.

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Food
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4 Videos: Failed States Index 2012 Launch

Sun, 2012-07-22 16:42 — Kathy Gilbeaux

fundforpeace.org

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Situation Report

Book - The World Bank Publication - Improving Access to Finance for India's Rural Poor

Tue, 2012-07-10 23:35 — Kathy Gilbeaux

by: Priya Basu
Price: $25.00
English; Paperback; 152 pages; 6x9
Published May 15, 2006 by World Bank
ISBN: 978-0-8213-6146-7; SKU: 16146

Finance is an extraordinarily effective tool in spreading economic opportunity and fighting poverty. India has a relatively deep financial system and wide network of rural banks. But India's financial markets and institutions have not served poor people well. Despite improvements in the delivery of financial services over the past three decades, the vast majority of India's poor households, who are concentrated in rural areas, do not have access to formal finance.

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Global
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Economics
Scarcity
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The U.K. August 2011 Riots Could Have Been Predicted

Thu, 2012-07-05 11:44 — Kathy Gilbeaux

Burned-out hulk of stores and apartments after night of rioting // Source: wikipedia.org

Homeland Security News Wire - July 5, 2012

Researchers studying urban violence have developed a new method which can help city authorities to assess the conditions where conflict could potentially tip into violence; Participatory Violence Appraisal (PVA), used in Kenya and Chile, could have helped to anticipate the tipping points that led to last summer’s riots in cities across the United Kingdom, the researchers say

A University of Manchester team researching urban violence has developed a new method which can help city authorities to assess the conditions where conflict could potentially tip into violence.

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