Food Riots Could Spread, UN Chief Warns World

Food?

"Experts believe food insecurity should be treated as seriously as climate change."

No kidding????

The two are inextricably linked!

nah... its all made up

The Real Shortage Has Not Come Yet, Probably Never Will !

Ha, ha, keep your head in the clouds. Are you looking, dude!

fucking retard.... go see fox news


ontopic:

the global food crisis is affecting the poor countries right now BUT will affect the developed countries in the coming months (all we have seen is high food prices) now we will start to see shortages and EXTREMELY HIGH PRICES.


imagen a global depression with a global food crisis...

The U.S. should just worry about it's own population in these circumstances. Cut off all foreign aid (except to Israel because I'm not an anti-semite) and let the other countries fare for themselves.

It's going to be a long, hot, hungry Summer.

Bailing out the banks while subsidizing commodities, the government is going to be busy busy busy handing out tax dollars while they talk about tax cuts for the rich.

its all gona explode real soon.......

Living in Canada we should just keep all our food and not ship any of it out.

I've never seen anything like the way food keeps going up. Anyone notice cooking oil drastically increased this week. It went up like a dollar a bottle of 64 oz. in one week. I guess they have to use for biofuels now. People with money better stock up now. It's only going to get worse.

Opening remarks by Sir John Holmes, Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator at the DIHAD 2008 Conference.

"My aim in saying all this is not to create a sense of doom and despair. On the contrary, my point is that we have the means to tackle all these issues, if we have the will. What we need to do above all is to start investing in the concrete, practical risk reduction measures that can help save lives and livelihoods. It is going to take all of our combined efforts to prepare and mitigate their effects. To that end, we must build on and develop lasting and substantive partnerships across all nations and sectors.

The good news is that some steps in this direction are already occurring. We are strengthening our collaboration with regional actors for contingency planning purposes. We're continuing to ramp-up joint training activities for disaster preparedness and response. And governments, the UN, NGOs, and private sector actors in the region are beginning to highlight the potentially devastating effects of climate change, not least desertification and water stress, through strengthened research and advocacy activities. Some of the countries in this region are already at the forefront of finding innovative methods for preparing against natural disasters. I would encourage these countries to transfer this knowledge and also to invest in building the capacity of disaster prone nations to respond to humanitarian challenges themselves.

But I fear we are also going to need more global resources to tackle these challenges, to find innovative ways of raising these vitally-needed additional funds, and to make sure that these extra resources are spread evenly across the sectors. Allocations must not be devoted exclusively to the most visible aspect of this new demand i.e. meeting immediate food needs, but also to health, emergency education, etc. So the UN, NGOs and donors – both public and private - must continue to work together to increase the level of resources coming from both new and broader sources of funding, not least from the private sector, and to set appropriate priorities. We also need to continue to work on the diversity of funding mechanisms, in addition to core contributions to agencies and NGOs.

In this respect, the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF), the Common Humanitarian Funds (CHFs) in Sudan and the DRC, and the numerous smaller, emergency response pooled funds have in my view contributed significantly to the aim of strengthening the timeliness, effectiveness and predictability of relief, and of re-enforcing coherent and wellcoordinated humanitarian action. But we must stay aware of new developments in the funding environment. These range from the increased multisectoral financial needs of emergency operations to the programmatic shifts from use of surplus commodities to a much greater utilization of cash-based food assistance. We should also consider seriously the innovative research now under way on insurance-based solutions to cope with measurable natural hazards, such as droughts that afflict particular areas.

Of course, we will always have human conflicts to contend with in addition to nature's hazards. The good news is that wars between States have diminished. On the other hand, it's not at all good news that various kinds of internal or civil conflict appear to be on the increase. Not only are civilian populations the main victims of these conflicts, they are too often actively used as pawns for political purposes by those promoting conflict. Certainly respect for international humanitarian principles and basic international humanitarian law – the responsibility to protect innocent civilians – sometimes seems at an all-time low in key hotspots, for example Sudan, Somalia and Gaza.

The crisis in Darfur is now five years old, with no immediate end in sight to the violence, pillage and displacement, despite the deployment of the UNAMID force, which will inevitably take time to build its real strength. A staggering 2.4 million people are now displaced. Twothirds of the population require some form of humanitarian assistance. The world's largest aid operation, comprising more than 13,000 humanitarian workers, the vast majority Sudanese, is struggling to cope with fatigue exacerbated by continued harassment, car-jackings and targeted attacks on humanitarian workers.

What may surprise some of you is that the number of displaced in Darfur is comparable to the number of internally displaced people in Iraq. While many are aware of the suffering of civilians in Darfur, it saddens me to see that the daily threats faced by Iraqis, exacerbated, of course, by the ongoing violence, are still under-reported and under-estimated.

In Somalia too, some 1.5 million people are expected to be in need of assistance this year – a 50% increase from last year. And in the West Bank and Gaza, the UN is now on its sixth decade of providing aid to the Palestinians in the absence of a political resolution to the Middle East conflict. In February, I visited Gaza. I saw how some 1.5 million people are living in what must seem like a giant open-air prison in which 80% of the population relies on UN food aid. Of course, citizens in the West Bank, as well as those in towns in southern Israel, are also not immune from repeated violence and suffering. International humanitarian law is regularly violated by both sides. But a solution cannot come from collective punishment of populations or violence which only increases despair and alienation.

And when it comes to these conflicts born of human causes, one fact stands out again and again. Humanitarian relief is no substitute for political action and the active search for conflict prevention and resolution. Which is why as humanitarians we must go on pressing the politicians for more proactive searches for solutions, and not to succumb to passivity while we keep the victims alive.

The Road Ahead: Meeting the Challenges Together

So where do we go from here?

Despite the severity of these challenges, perhaps the greatest risk that we as a humanitarian community face is not from nature itself, but from human nature. In other words, the greatest risk is our ingrained habit of not acting radically and courageously ahead of time, before disaster or conflict occurs, be it a cyclone or flood, or a human pressure cooker about to boil over, like in Gaza or as we saw recently in Kenya.

The lesson is that working together, we must redouble our efforts and work together even more cohesively not only to respond to crises, but also to reduce vulnerability to crises -- both the chronic, so-called silent emergencies and those that strike suddenly. If we are to meet the growing array of humanitarian needs, we must harness the energies and goodwill of all humanitarian actors, including NGOs from Muslim and other nations, as well as regional partners, including the OIC, the African Union, the League of Arab States and the GCC.

As this region's growing engagement in humanitarian issues demonstrates, great things can be achieved when compassion is transformed into action. In an era defined by a changing climate and the ever-present menace of conflict, no single humanitarian agency or set of agencies can cover all humanitarian needs. Collaboration is not an option, it is a necessity. Because only by working together can we further our ability to alleviate suffering, and help to restore a measure of hope and humanity to a world sorely in need of both."


[link to www.reliefweb.int]

"My aim in saying all this is not to create a sense of doom and despair. On the contrary, my point is that we have the means to tackle all these issues, if we have the will"

Sir John Holmes, Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator at the DIHAD 2008 Conference

oh, shut the fuck up. Seriouzly. You're a brainwashed idiot.

By Next Year Everything Will Be Under Control and Fine.

Everything has ups and downs.

By the year after 2010, it will be nothing but normal !

Haiti taking on the UN, rioting in the streets.


Posted : Wed, 09 Apr 2008 13:43:03 GMT
Fair use applies
New delhi - Global commodity prices were unlikely to ease in the short term owing to a shortage of supply, a top United Nations official said Wednesday, and warned that this could lead to more food riots. "The rise in prices of food commodities all over the world, is not going to ease in the short term in view of supply-demand situation," Jacques Diouf, director general of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) was reported as saying by PTI news agency.

"The world food situation is very serious today with food riots reported from many countries like Egypt, Cameroon, Haiti, Burkina Faso and Senegal. We fear that this may spread to other countries," Diouf said after talks with Indian Food Minister Sharad Pawar.

The UN official told reporters that the world had 405 million tonnes of cereal stocks that could feed the global population for only eight to 12 weeks.

Diouf said people in the developing countries would be affected the most by rising food prices as they spend 50-60 per cent of their income on food.

Increasing demand in developing countries, particularly in China and India, and diversion of food grains towards production of bio-fuels were partly responsible for rising commodity prices around the world, he said.

Diouf said the FAO had called an emergency meeting of heads of states from June 3-5, 2008, to discuss the overall situation including the impact of climate change on agriculture.
[link to www.earthtimes.org]

Haitians protest high food prices
Wed, 09 Apr 2008 17:01:16
Haitians burn cars and block streets in a protest to the high cost of living.
Protesting at high food prices, hungry Haitian crowds have tried to storm the presidential palace in the capital Port-au-Prince.

The protesters set cars and buildings on fire and made concrete barriers throughout the town, blocking the streets on Tuesday.

UN troops were forced to fire rubber bullets and tear gas in attempts to disperse the crowds who shouted "We are hungry" as they tried to break the palace gates with a rolling dumpster.

They also hold UN peacekeepers responsible for raising the food prices and demanded their departure.

"I compare this situation to having a bucket full of gasoline and having some people around with a box of matches," commenting on the current circumstances in the country, Patrick Elie, an adviser to Haiti's President, Rene Garcia Preval, told reporters.

Since mid-2007, the food prices have risen 40 percent on average around the world, caused unrest in Haiti, which about 80% of its population live in poverty.
[link to www.presstv.ir]

Zetas Right Again!

yes i believe its true...look at what the farmers are planting.CORN.and for what fuel for cars which i guess is more than food to eat,ranchers hog farmers,chickens farmers cant afford to feed their livestock so will sell off this summer.right now 33 countries are having grain shortages because of the anount of mouths to feed. years ago the united states used to have bin sights which could carry use over for three years but gave them up in the early 70s.time is short so who cares anymore.

at least will have gas

only if you can pay 10.00 a gallon for it.

Lets organize. Everyone stick together.
If they dont put chicken Mcnuggets back on the dollar menu
We make our move

Notice that the worst shortages are happening in the most overpopulated places.

Tragic? Yes, of course it is. However, it comes as no surprise that places like Haiti and Indonesia are suffering even more than usual.

The price of oil keeps going up and with it so does the price of producing crops and shipping food of all kinds. And there are always weather related crop failures in various places. That has been happening since we became farmers thousands of years ago.

Maybe when the price of a bushel of wheat or rice or corn is equal to a barrel of oil, there will be some stability and sanity in the world since most oil producing countries in the Middle East cannot grow enough of their own food and have to buy from others.

In the USA, we can do without the Chinese made toys and shoes and clothing...most of us have too much of it already. So like Canada, we would just keep what we need here before exporting any.

Roads were blocked and sustained gunfire rang out in upscale neighborhoods in the mountains above Port-au-Price on Wednesday, as protests and looting over soaring food prices paralyzed the Haitian capital.

National television said President Rene Preval, who has made no public statements since the unrest began last week, would address the nation in a speech that could determine the course of the demonstrations — and of his government.

"I believe if President Preval talks to the people about the high cost of living, people will listen to the president and go home," said Sen. Joseph Lambert, a former senate president and a member of Preval's party. "If not, if there is an attempt at a coup d'etat to remove the president, things will get worse."

Yes, by all means save the shipping costs.

When it gets really bad, we will just cross your borders and steal it. It's the American way. Oh, and we want your oil too while we're at it.....large barrel will be fine. On second thought, we just have you build a pipeline for us.

Thanks.
Uncle Sam

Geeish, one bad year of crops and the world goes nuts.

What will be next years terrorist news about food, that we have too much food?

Hungry Haitians stormed the presidential palace Tuesday to demand the resignation of President Rene Preval over soaring food prices and U.N. peacekeepers battled rioters with rubber bullets and tear gas.

Rioters were chased away from the presidential palace but by late afternoon had left trails of destruction across Port-au-Prince. Concrete barricades and burned-out cars blocked streets, while windows were smashed and buildings set on fire from the capital's center up through its densely populated hills.

It will only get worse, there are too many human mouths to feed and unless we all become cannibals there will be a massive die off within the next 20 years.

People who destroy GM crops are already labeled as terrorists.
The same with those who may destroy cloned animal labs.

The energy crisis is upon us. It's not just "one bad year".
It's time to stop having children.