Attacks on humanitarian operations and a string of threats and unacceptable demands from armed groups have made it impossible for the world’s largest food aid agency to continue feeding up to one million hungry people in southern Somalia.
ROME, Italy, November 19, 2008 (ENS) – Ships from the Netherlands and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, NATO, are escorting food aid vessels from the UN’s World Food Programme through the pirate-ridden waters off the coast of Somalia, where an Indian Navy warship last night blew up a pirate vessel that opened fire on it.…
MANILA, Philippines, October 29, 2008 (ENS) – The world’s largest food relief organization, the United Nations’ World Food Programme, has a new system of buying food that better supports the productivity of small farmers, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said today in Manila. In the past, the WFP has purchased food on the international markets, said…
NEW YORK, New York, September 8, 2008 (ENS) – Hurricane Ike, the latest of the deadly storms, has killed more than 40 people in Cabaret, a village near Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti, in addition to the 500 deaths in the northern port city of Gonaïves caused by Hurricane Hanna last week. Haiti, the poorest…
GWANDA, Zimbabwe, August 26, 2008 (ENS) – Dumezweni Nare does not remember any time in the past six months when he had a decent meal. “It is by the grace of the Lord that we are able to speak to you,” said Nare, as he scavenged for wild fruit with a group of visibly hungry…
WASHINGTON, DC, July 3, 2008 (ENS) – When the Group of Eight, G8, leaders of the world’s wealthiest countries open their annual meeting Monday in Japan, the twin issues of food and fuel costs will be front and center on the agenda. On Wednesday, World Bank Group President Robert Zoellick called on the G8 leaders…
GENEVA, Switzerland, April 30, 2008 (ENS) – The United Nations aims to have a comprehensive plan to tackle the global food crisis in place by the beginning of June, “around which the institutions and leaders around the world can coalesce,” a top UN official said at a news conference here today. Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs…
GENEVA, Switzerland, April 28, 2008 (ENS) – The United States and the European Union have taken a “criminal path” by contributing to an explosive rise in global food prices through using food crops to produce biofuels, the United Nations special rapporteur on the right to food said today. At a press conference in Geneva, Jean…
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, April 9, 2008 (ENS) – Warning that spiralling food prices are leading to increased poverty and unrest, several senior United Nations officials are calling for urgent measures to tackle the global crisis, which is causing the most suffering among the world’s poor. The World Food Programme’s deputy executive director is warning…