Food

A 21st-century land rush is on. Driven by fear and lured by promises of high profits, foreign investors are scooping up vast tracts of farmland in some of the world’s hungriest countries to grow crops for export.

As the climate changes and populations shift and grow, billions of people around the globe face shortages of land and water, rising food prices, and increasing hunger. Alarm over a future without affordable food and water is sparking unrest in a world already tinder-dried by repression and recession, corruption and mismanagement, boundary disputes and ancient feuds, ethnic tension and religious fundamentalism.

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U.S. Fears Serious Famine in Troubled Sudan Region

Sun, 2012-01-29 00:42 — Kathy Gilbeaux

Argil carries water to her family who are fleeing after fighting broke out, near the Blue Nile state capital al-Damazin (Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah Reuters, REUTERS / September 5, 2011)

dailypress.com - Andrew Quinn - Reuters - January 24, 2012

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States fears a large-scale famine in Sudan's restive border states of Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile and is boosting pressure in Khartoum to accept aid or face a unilateral assistance operation, a senior U.S. official said on Tuesday.

"We are feeling a lot of pressure, if there's no international access, to look at ways in which assistance would be carried across the border without their approval," Princeton Lyman, the Obama administration's special envoy for Sudan, told reporters.

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Preliminary Results of Assessments Done in South Sudan

Sun, 2012-01-29 00:25 — Kathy Gilbeaux

Preliminary results of assessments done in South Sudan . . . CERF allocates $104 million to 13 underfunded crises (including South Sudan and Haiti) . . .

(Juba, 7 January 2012): Humanitarian agencies are mounting a major emergency operation in Jonglei State in South Sudan to help people affected by the recent wave of inter-communal violence. “The Government of South Sudan has declared Jonglei a disaster zone and asked humanitarian agencies to accelerate life-saving assistance. We’re responding to that call,” said the United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator in South Sudan Ms. Lise Grande.
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Slow Response to East Africa Famine 'Cost 'Lives'

Wed, 2012-01-18 13:00 — Kathy Gilbeaux

BBC News - January 18, 2012

The US government says 29,000 children under five years old died between May and July 2011

Thousands of needless deaths occurred from famine in East Africa last year because the international community failed to heed early warnings, say two leading British aid organisations.

Oxfam and Save the Children say it took more than six months for aid agencies to act on warnings of imminent famine.

Between 50,000 and 100,000 people have died in Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia.

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Guardian: Maps and Lists of Occupy Everywhere Sites

Mon, 2011-10-24 07:42 — mdmcdonald

The below Guardian article provides a map and lists of where Occupy Everywhere protests are emerging. They are primarily, but not exclusively in the U.S. and Europe, in countries where the economy is in significant decline and inequities are significant. In most of these places, the youth fear that their future will be worse than their parents, due to the greed of a global elite insensitive to the destruction they have caused economically and environmentally.

The list includes 951 cities in 82 countries.

To see the story and full list, go to:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/oct/17/occupy-protests-world-list-map

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Occupy Wall Street Website

Sat, 2011-10-22 10:45 — admin

We're here for him!

Hear it from the horse's mouth:

http://occupywallst.org/

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Challenges Loom as World Population Hits 7 Billion

Mon, 2011-10-17 23:49 — Kathy Gilbeaux

submitted by Samuel Bendett

by David Crary - Associated Press - October 17, 2011

She's a 40-year-old mother of eight, with a ninth child due soon. The family homestead in a Burundi village is too small to provide enough food, and three of the children have quit school for lack of money to pay required fees.

"I regret to have made all those children," says Godelive Ndageramiwe. "If I were to start over, I would only make two or three."

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Video - Somalia is 'World's Worst Humanitarian Disaster'

Sat, 2011-07-16 00:43 — Kathy Gilbeaux

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Fears of 'Death on an Epic Scale' in Somalia Crisis

Sat, 2011-07-16 00:40 — Kathy Gilbeaux

channel4.com - July 14, 2011

An aid worker in Somalia, the centre of the East Africa drought crisis which has hit 12m people, tells Channel 4 News he fears "death on an epic, unimaginable scale" if more is not done.

Jens Opperman, the head of charity Action Against Hunger in Somalia, said the situation is deterioriating and will continue to do so unless there is a significant increase in international support.

"We are witnessing unimaginable human suffering," he told Channel 4 News.

The Horn of Africa's worst drought in 60 years has hit people across Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti. It has caused perhaps the most serious emergency in Somalia, where hundreds of thousands have become displaced as they desperately seek food and water.

Mr Opperman estimated that 2.8m people in Somalia are in urgent need of life-saving humanitarian assistance. He estimated that one in three children is currently on the brink of starvation.

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