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/ 9 June 2008

Greener and leaner

The world food crisis is a tragedy frequently and passionately foretold. For years food experts warned that chronic under-investment in agriculture in developing countries, by governments and donors alike, would one day spell disaster.

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/ 31 May 2008

Burma junta under new pressure over cyclone victims

Burma’s junta on Saturday came under renewed international pressure from rights groups and the United States defence chief, who said its slow response to the cyclone disaster had cost "tens of thousands of lives". US Defence Secretary Robert Gates criticised the delay in allowing in foreign aid, saying US ships could have swiftly brought relief.

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/ 30 May 2008

World leaders to tackle food crisis at Rome summit

It has been described as a global crisis pushing 100-million people into hunger, threatening to stoke social and political turmoil and set the fight against world poverty back by seven years. Now, the food price crisis will be tackled by world leaders, who meet in Rome next week to seek ways of reducing the suffering for the world’s poorest people.

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/ 27 May 2008

Burma junta unmoved, extends Suu Kyi arrest

Burma’s junta extended the house arrest of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Tuesday, a move likely to dismay Western nations who promised millions of dollars in aid after Cyclone Nargis. Officials drove to the Nobel laureate’s lakeside Rangoon home to read out a six-month extension order in person.

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/ 22 May 2008

UN chief presses case in Burma for more aid

United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon flew to Burma on Thursday to press the ruling generals to allow a full-blown international aid effort for 2,4-million people left destitute by Cyclone Nargis. The government’s official toll is 77 738 people killed and 55 917 missing, and it also estimates the damage to the economy at -billion.

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/ 21 May 2008

Ban heads for Asia on Burma aid mission

United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon headed to south-east Asia on Wednesday on a mission to secure more help for cyclone victims in Burma, whose military rulers have finally granted an aid agency the use of helicopters to deliver supplies. The UN says up to 2,4-million people are struggling to survive.

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/ 20 May 2008

UN: Ethiopia drought threatens millions of children

A severe drought in Ethiopia threatens up to six million children, the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) warned on Tuesday. "Up to six million children under five years of age are living in impoverished, drought-prone districts and require continuation of urgent preventative health and nutrition interventions," Unicef said in a statement.

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/ 18 May 2008

Pressure mounts on Burma to open up to aid

Aid was trickling in on Sunday to an estimated 2,5-million people left destitute by Cyclone Nargis in Burma’s Irrawaddy delta as more foreign envoys tried to get the junta to admit large-scale international relief. The junta’s official toll from the disaster stands at 77 738 dead and 55 917 missing.

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/ 16 May 2008

China buries quake dead as new aftershock hits

China struggled to bury its dead and help tens of thousands of injured and homeless on Friday when a powerful aftershock brought new havoc four days after an earthquake thought to have killed more than 50 000 people. Anger has focused on the state of school buildings, many of which crumpled in Monday’s 7,9-magnitude quake.

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/ 12 May 2008

Anger mounts in Bangkok at Burma aid visa delays

A furious rescue worker accused Burma’s military junta on Monday of crimes against humanity for refusing to fast-track visas for aid officials desperate to enter the country to help the 1,5-million survivors of Cyclone Nargis. ”They say they will call, but it’s always wait, wait, wait,” Pierre Fouillant of the Comite de Secours Internationaux, a French disaster rescue agency.

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/ 12 May 2008

US flies cyclone aid to Burma

The first United States military aid flight landed in Burma on Monday, but relief supplies continued to just dribble into the reclusive state nine days after a cyclone. A C-130 military transport plane left Thailand’s Vietnam war-era U-Tapao airbase carrying 12 700kg of water, mosquito nets and blankets.

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/ 12 May 2008

Cash-strapped WFP cuts food aid in Ethiopia

A lack of funds has forced the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) to cut by more than half the number of districts in drought-hit Ethiopia it serves, the food agency said on Monday and appealed for ,4-million in aid. WFP said shortages would prevent it from providing food supplements to malnourished mothers and children.

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/ 11 May 2008

‘Unimaginable tragedy’ if Burma delays aid

Desperate survivors of Cyclone Nargis poured out of Burma’s Irrawaddy Delta on Sunday in search of food, water and medicine as aid groups said thousands more people will die if emergency supplies do not get through soon. Buddhist temples and high schools in towns on the outskirts of Nargis’s trail of destruction are now makeshift refugee centres.

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/ 9 May 2008

UN to resume aid flights to Burma

The United Nations World Food Programme on Friday said two relief flights will be sent to Burma on Saturday, just hours after suspending flights due to ”unacceptable restrictions” by the government. Burma has maintained strict limits on foreign involvement in the relief effort, despite calls for it to allow unfettered access to experts.

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/ 9 May 2008

UN agency suspends Burma flights after seizure

The United Nations food agency suspended aid flights to cyclone-struck Burma on Friday after the military government seized two deliveries at Rangoon airport, apparently determined to distribute supplies on its own. Governments around the world have been pressing Burma’s ruling generals to open the country’s borders to desperately needed assistance.

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/ 8 May 2008

More than a dozen killed in Somali clashes

Clashes between Ethiopian troops and Islamist insurgents have killed more than a dozen people in southern and central regions of Somalia, residents said. Islamist fighters, opposed to Ethiopian soldiers in Somalia to support its interim government, ambushed a convoy of Ethiopian forces in the central Hiraan region on Wednesday.

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/ 8 May 2008

Aid misery for Burma cyclone victims

A few aid shipments had arrived in Burma’s main city by Thursday, but the planeloads of supplies and heavy equipment needed to help millions of cyclone victims remain largely stranded outside the country. In a dramatic development, the ruling junta agreed to accept United States emergency aid after last weekend’s cyclone.

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/ 5 May 2008

Burma believes 10 000 dead from cyclone

Burma’s military junta believes at least 10 000 people died in a cyclone that ripped through the Irrawaddy Delta, triggering a massive international aid response for the pariah nation. ”The basic message was that they believe the provisional death toll was about 10 000, with 3 000 missing,” a Rangoon-based diplomat said in Bangkok.

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/ 30 April 2008

North Korea headed for outright famine

North Korea again runs the risk of outright famine, ten years after up to one million of its people died of starvation, a leading United States research institute said on Wednesday. ”The country is in its most precarious situation since the end of the famine a decade ago,” said Peterson Institute senior fellow Marcus Noland.