By JASON STRAZIUSO4 August 2011 THREE new Somali regions have been declared famine zones, expanding the area where the highest rates of malnutrition and mortality are taking place, including the refugee camps in the capital, Mogadishu. The UN’s food agency said yesterday famine is likely to spread across all of Somalia’s south in the next […]
Analysis by Lester R. Brown* WASHINGTON, Jul 20, 2011 (IPS) – Many countries are facing dangerous water shortages. As world demand for food has soared, millions of farmers have drilled too many irrigation wells in efforts to expand their harvests. As a result, water tables are falling and wells are going dry in some 20 […]
MANDERA/WAJIR, 28 July 2011 (IRIN) – In his village, Kiliwehiri in northeastern Kenya, Abdullah Mohamed is known as “that mentally disturbed man”. “It is difficult to be normal after you have watched your entire life’s savings get wiped out before your eyes,” said Ibrahim Abdi, assistant chief of the village. “We are Somalis, we look […]
By ARTHUR WESTING 14 July 2011 Some 200 years ago Benjamin Franklin noted that nothing is certain except for death and taxes. Today Franklin could readily have been additionally certain of the inevitability of two further events of sad note, namely armed conflicts and global warming. In his latest book, impassioned investigative journalist and courageous […]
BORENA (OROMIYA REGION), 19 July 2011 (IRIN) – For many people, access to water is a mere turn of the tap away; for Abdha Aso, a 20-year-old mother of five, it involves a four-hour round trip to a muddy pond. Only a year ago, she could reach a nearby stream in 20 minutes but it […]
By David Derbyshire8 July 2011 Global warming will threaten Britain’s security by triggering wars, food shortages and mass migration, Energy Minister Chris Huhne warned today. Although the UK may escape the worst physical impacts of rising temperatures and sea levels, the UK will still be exposed to ‘alarming and shocking’ consequences of climate change elsewhere, […]
By Shelby Lin Erdman, CNN; CNN’s Ninette Sosa and Barbara Hall contributed to this reportJuly 18, 2011 (CNN) – Massive global greenhouse gas pollution is changing the chemistry of the world’s oceans so much that scientists now predict it could severely damage shellfish populations and the nations that depend on the harvests if significant action […]
BISLE (SOMALI REGION), 12 July 2011 (IRIN) – Every day, 500g of boiled wheat is divided up between two adults, four children, a calf, a goat and a donkey in the Farah household. It is the only food they have had after rains failed for the past two seasons. The 15kg sack of wheat is […]
By Tom Parry in Dadaab, Kenya, Daily Mirror 12 July 2011 Hawa Muya cradles her baby boy while her daughter shelters from the sand and flies against her mum’s black robe. The 28-year-old is sitting patiently in a long line as she keeps a close eye on Hussein, who is 10 months, and Fatma, aged […]
By Fred Pearce7 Jul 2011 If you wanted to really mess with the world’s food production, a good place to start would be Bou Craa, located in the desert miles from anywhere in the Western Sahara. They don’t grow much here, but Bou Craa is a mine containing one of the world’s largest reserves of […]
