More than 80,000 young children may need treatment for malnutrition in part of western Myanmar where the army cracked down on stateless Rohingya Muslims last year, the World Food Programme (WFP) said on
Long live the emperor: Emperor penguins, the only penguin variety that breed during the harsh Antarctic winters, are headed towards extinction, said a research published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. If climate change continues to melt ice at rates published in the last report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the population of
This paper attempts to analyse the current global crisis in the availability and prices of rice by drawing upon the long-term developments in the rice market. The instability and thinness in the world rice markets are shown to be mainly due to the predominantly precautionary export policies of major exporting countries, which in turn are a result of domestic food security considerations. Some possible policy options are also discussed.
Survivors of the cyclone which ravaged Myanmar last month will soon receive rice generated by the popular UN-backed Internet game that allows players to expand their word skills while helping to feed the world's hungry. FreeRice.com, in which 20 grains of rice are donated to the UN World Food Programme (WFP) every time a person answers a question correctly, has already generated over 36 billion grains of rice enough for more than 3.7 million meals. Two consignments of rice for Myanmar have been paid for by YUM! and Unilever, the latest companies to help fund the FreeRice initiative.
Rising food prices could spark worldwide unrest and threaten political stability, the United Nations
A leading aid group warned yesterday that thousands of young children in cyclone-ravaged Myanmar could starve to death within weeks unless emergency food supplies reach them soon. Save the Children said on its website that the youngsters could succumb to hunger "within two to three weeks". "We are extremely worried that many children in the affected areas are now suffering from severe acute malnourishment, the most serious level of hunger," said Jasmine Whitbread, chief executive of Save the Children UK.
News from Burma keeps getting worse: dire poverty, murderous repression and now cyclone Nargis has killed some 100,000 people. Disease and starvation could push the toll over the million mark as the country's despots, unbelievably, impede emergency aid while exporting rice - literally making a killing on inflated international prices. Burma is suffering even more than it might because it neglected its farms.
The cyclone in Myanmar will hit the import of pulses and consequently push up prices, which are already ruling high. Shipments will be delayed, official sources told The Hindu. Nearly 10 lakh tonnes of pulses are scheduled to be imported this year. These include over three lakh tonnes each of tur, urad and moong dal. Delivery of shipments of about 30,000 quintals each was slated to have been completed at Indian ports by October.
Yangon: The first of the UN's relief planes landed in Myanmar on Thursday as a US diplomat warned that the toll in Cyclone Nargis could be over 100,000, signalling a humanitarian crisis way beyond the military junta's estimates so far. Worldwide condemnation of the junta also grew, for keeping US aid planes at bay, even as thousands of hungry people swarmed the few open shops and fistfights broke out over food and water in the swamped Irrawaddy Delta.
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