59 posts categorized "Hunger in the News"

Domestic

Food Stamps Slashed to Pay for Teacher Jobs Bill‎. To pay for the bill … they are accelerating the scale-back of food stamp payments—at a time when a record number of Americans are relying on food stamps. [CBS News]

U.S. Aid Winning Friends in Flood-Ravaged Pakistan. U.S. Army choppers carrying emergency food and water buzzed over the swollen river and washed-out bridges, landing in the valley once controlled by the Taliban. [Associated Press]

Solving the World's Hunger and Obesity Crises Together. O[]besity and hunger look like two sides of the same core problem ... [CNN]

'Tea party' Groups Plan Arizona Rally against Illegal Immigration. "Tea party" groups are planning a large rally on Sunday in Arizona, near the Mexican border … [The Washington Post]

Climate Change/Environment

Russian Fires Prompt Kremlin to Abruptly Embrace Climate Change. Russia's ongoing heat wave, along with its disastrous fallout, may have finally persuaded the Kremlin to combat climate change. [Christian Science Monitor]

When the Smoke Clears in Russia, Will Climate Policy Change?‎ As temperatures in Russia climb to historic highs, parching crops and igniting large tracts of forest and peatland, analysts are watching to see if these conditions heat up the country's climate change policies. [The New York Times]

Climate Change ‘Will Increase Heart Deaths.’ Many more people will die of heart problems as global warming continues … [BBC News]

Pakistan Floods Shows Threat from Warmer World. Floods that have devastated Pakistan could be a sign of the future as climate change brings greater extremes of weather to the region.  [Reuters]

International

U.N. Food Agencies Say Zimbabwe Makes Strides in Food Security; Some Shortfall. A joint report … says food security has improved in Zimbabwe—but some 1.68 million people in the country will need food aid through March 2011. [Voice of America]

World Bank Urges Nations to Avoid Food Export Bans‎. The World Bank urged countries to refrain from imposing policies that could trigger a new global food price crisis … [Reuters]

Grain Price Rise May Fuel Mideast, Europe Unrest. Rising grain prices from Russia's drought and fires will pressure populations already hit by the financial crisis and could stoke unrest—particularly in the Middle East, North Africa and parts of Europe. [Reuters]

East Africa: Rain, Cross-border Trade Boost Food Security. Food security, a persistent challenge in East Africa, has gradually improved following increased rainfall recorded last year. [AllAfrica.com]

International

In Brief: Cambodia Needs More Midwives to Reduce Maternal Deaths. There is one doctor or midwife for every 1,000 people in Cambodia, compared with two per 1,000 in Thailand, and 12 per 1,000 in Japan. [IRIN]

Somalia's al Shabaab Rebels Expel Three Aid Groups. Somalia's al Shabaab insurgents said on Monday they had ordered several aid agencies to close their operations, accusing them of spreading Christian propaganda. [Reuters Africa]

Weather Impact on Europe, CIS wheat crop. Drought and disruptive rainfall across Europe and former Soviet Union republics have forced producers to revise down their 2010 wheat crop forecasts. [Reuters India]

Haitian Children Turn to Begging in DR after Quake. [M]ore Haitian children are begging on the streets of the Dominican Republic—a sign that the economic gulf between the neighboring nations has grown wider since the Jan. 12 earthquake. [The Associated Press]

Haitians Look to Family 1,500 Miles North for Help. As Alourds Grandoit hitches her chair across the yard, following the spots of shade, her thoughts linger mostly on the dead: 10 relatives lost in the Jan. 12 earthquake. [The New York Times]

Pakistan: Floods Show No Sign of Let-Up. Unrelenting downpours continue to limit relief efforts and have grounded helicopters in KP, leaving thousands of people cut off in areas where roads and bridges have been swept away. [IRIN]

Domestic

Liberals Vow to Back State Aid, but Restore Food Stamp Funding. Liberal Democrats said they will vote for a $26.1 billion state aid bill when the House reconvenes this week but are committed to restoring the food-stamps program funding that is being used to pay for it. [The Hill]

City Program for Homeless is Criticized. A signature anti-poverty program of the Bloomberg administration is stumbling because of lax oversight … [The New York Times]

Research Desk Tallies: How Expensive is Welfare? When people refer to "welfare," they usually mean the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families program (TANF) … [The Washington Post blog]

Silver Diner Club-Card Plan to Help Fund School Nutrition and Fitness Programs. Robert Giaimo and Ype Von Hengst have launched "Eat Well, Do Well," an initiative to fund school nutrition and fitness programs to combat childhood obesity. [The Washington Post]

Nun's Death Rallies Anti-Immigration Forces. In Arizona, the shooting death of a rancher blew the lid off simmering anger over border security and helped solidify support for a tough new immigration law. [Associated Press]

Some Firms Struggle to Hire Despite High Unemployment. With a 9.5% jobless rate and some 15 million Americans looking for work, many employers are inundated with applicants. But a surprising number say they are getting an underwhelming response, and many are having trouble filling open positions. [The Wall Street Journal]

Environment/Climate Change

Ban Announces High-Level Panel to Tackle Global Sustainability Issues. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today unveiled a new panel on global sustainability that is tasked with finding ways to lift people out of poverty while tackling climate change and ensuring that economic development is environmentally friendly. [U.N. News Centre]

Domestic

Clock Ticking on School Lunch Legislation. As the clock ticks down on the 111th Congress, child and health advocacy groups are lobbying furiously for lawmakers to reauthorize the nation’s school lunch program with an expansion that would provide free, healthy meals to tens of thousands of additional children and tackle the problem of childhood obesity. [Education Week]

Achieving the Millennium Development Goals: Education is the Key Missing Link. While the Administration’s outline includes useful ideas on tracking development outcomes and increasing transparency and accountability, it also represents a missed opportunity to deliver on Obama’s commitment to invest $2 billion in a Global Fund for Education to achieve universal primary education. [The Brookings Institution]

[Blog] A Many Headed Beast. This week, we carried a piece about a new cross-country poverty index devised by a group of researchers at the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative, which is designed to capture several dimensions of poverty at once. [The Economist]

Technology Still a Barrier for Food Stamp Clients Hoping to Shop at Farmer's Markets. Progress has been slow in New Hampshire and Maine. [Fosters.com]

International

Fighting Poverty and Enhancing Rural Development: The Contribution of CBRDP. Ghana’s fight against poverty to make progress towards the Millennium Development Goals has seen various successive policies introduced to accelerate national development, with a special focus on rural development. [The Ghanaian Chronicle]

Maize Project ‘Breaks the Barriers’ of Rural Poverty. More than 200 residents of Saphukanduku Village in Transkei have broken the barriers of poverty with help from a R1.6million investment by the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative of South Africa (AsgiSA). [Daily Dispatch Online]

1.3 Million Villagers Face Hunger. More than 1.3 million people in Zimbabwe’s rural areas will require food assistance during the peak hunger season in early 2011, according to the latest UN estimates shown to ZimOnline at the weekend. [The Zimbabwean]

Climate Change/Environment

Food Production Must Double. With the global population expected to top 9.2 billion by 2050, experts say the world will need to repeat the Green Revolution that saw food production double between 1960 and 1985. [The Sydney Morning Herald]

Domestic

The Poor Always Pay. An Asian bank for low-income women is out to teach Wall Street a lesson. [Newsweek]

Farmers Struggling to Cultivate Markets. Vendors contending with low-income and ethnic communities see business withering. [The Chicago Tribune]

Huge Increase in Islanders on Food Stamps. One out of every 10 Staten Islanders now shops with food stamps. [SILive.com]

Five Myths about America's Homeless. Last month, the Obama administration released a plan designed to end homelessness in 10 years... [that was] fueled by recent research debunking a number of long-standing myths about homelessness in America -- and showing that many of our old policies were unwittingly making the problem worse. [The Washington Post]

International

Haitian Farmers Reaping Hard Times as Hunger Grows. In Haiti's rocky northern hills, Joseph Jean has planted seeds donated by U.S. aid group Trees for The Future hoping to reverse the deforestation that has washed away soil and impoverished farmers. [AFP]

China Moves from Aid Recipient to Aid Donor. When Britain announced it would stop giving public money to China as part of a plan to direct financial aid to countries in greater need, it was symbolic of China’s shift from aid receiver to aid giver. [IPS]

Malawi: There is Food but No Money to Take it to the People. Another year with a surplus harvest of maize, the staple food, is good news for Malawi, but dry spells in the south have left around 700,000 people in need of food assistance. [IRIN]

Africa: Help Out Small Farmers, Report Urges. Small-holder farmers, who make up almost all of Africa’s agriculture sector, need more support to reduce over-dependence on increasingly costly food imports, states a new report. [IRIN]

Cameroon Fears Imminent Hunger. There are fears of an imminent and unprecedented hunger and reduced farmers' income in most parts of Cameroon, particularly in the North West and South West regions as a cocoyam is spreading. [AfricaNews.com]

Climate Change/Environment

Oil Spill Has Not Spurred Change. For environmentalists, the BP oil spill may be disproving the maxim that great tragedies produce great change. [TheDay.com]

Plan to Save Indonesia's Forests Hits Snags. Environmentalists warn of loopholes as industries lobby for land rights. [The Wall Street Journal]

Domestic

Food Czar Hopes to Change the Way Baltimore Eats. While Holly Freishtat's directive may be straightforward — get more healthy food on the tables of the people who need it — accomplishing it may not be. [AP]

Initial Jobless Claims Dip, Lowest Since May. New claims for unemployment benefits dropped sharply last week, signaling that layoffs are slowing but not enough to signal strong job creation. High unemployment remains one of the biggest obstacles to a strong, sustained recovery. [AP]

U.S. Recovery Seen as On Track, But Will Slow. In a 2010 review of U.S. economic conditions released Thursday, the IMF attributed the economic recovery to a "powerful and effective policy response" as well as improved financial conditions. "While still modest by historical standards, the recovery has proved stronger than we had earlier expected," the IMF said. [CNN]

Minnesota Effort Seeks to Ease Rural Poverty Through 'Agripreneurship.’ Immigrants who have flocked to rural communities following the dream of putting their agricultural backgrounds and expertise to good work have run into a road block. According to advocates for people with limited income and resources, large scale, conventional farming has left most of them in poverty, and taken its toll on the land as well. [Public News Service]

International

Hunger Crisis Update for Niger and Haiti. Severe drought has struck in Niger and the resulting food shortages have sent child malnutrition rates soaring. For any country, a child acute malnutrition rate over 15 percent is considered an emergency. In Niger, the rate is currently 16.7 for children under five. [The Washington Examiner]

Burkina Faso: Vital Role for Local Food. ...Sesame, tamarind and certain leaves are vital tools in the fight against malnutrition, say aid workers training families in northern Burkina Faso. [IRIN]

Nigeria: Gearing Up to Fight Food Shortages. Severe water shortages, plummeting livestock prices and rising grain costs would affect each of the northern states, according to an assessment in May 2010 by the Famine Early Warning Systems Network. [IRIN]

Climate Change/Environment

Could Be a Busy Season for Disasters. The La Niña phenomenon has officially arrived and disaster response teams around the world might need to brace themselves for heavier monsoons, bigger and more frequent hurricanes, and angrier cyclones. [IRIN]

International

Hunger Fears Grow Amid Mass Sudan Exodus.Thousands of Sudanese are being forced to leave their homes and walk for days into an area already severely affected by food shortages. [BBC]

Asia Leads World With Sharp Drop in Poverty. The sharpest reductions in poverty worldwide continue to be recorded in Eastern and South-Eastern Asia, where the Millennium Development Goals target of halving extreme poverty has already been met, while most of Southern Asia is in danger of missing the target, says a United Nations progress report released on Thursday. [The Daily Times]

2010 World Cup: Boon or Bane for South Africa? The 2010 World Cup is all about legacy, and this is what this sporting event will leave to South Africa as the country hosts the game, according to FIFA. [Seer Press News]

Domestic

High Cost of Living Works against City's Hungry. The number of San Franciscans on food stamps has grown by some 55 percent in the past 17 months. [The San Francisco Examiner]

Viewpoint: A Solution for Hunger and Poverty. Access to food and other resources is not a matter of availability. Rather, it’s connected with one’s ability to pay. [The Daily Universe]

Poverty Trumps Education Gains. Despite state improvements, regional board report cites toll of economics on progress. [The Commercial Appeal]

Children Born Poor More Likely to Be Dogged by Poverty. Using data from a University of Michigan program that has been tracking the same families for more than 40 years, economists at the Urban Institute found that 49 percent of children who are born into households below the poverty line spend at least half of their first 18 years in poverty. [The Wall Street Journal]

Climate Change/Environment

Indonesia: Deforestation Leading to Fewer Resources, More Disasters. Wisnawati used to make three million rupiah (U.S. $325) a month tapping rubber trees, but now, after years of rampant deforestation, she farms rice and coffee and is lucky to bring in half that each month. [IRIN]

International
IMF Proposes New Bank Taxes to Fund Bailouts. Banks and other financial institutions face paying two new taxes to fund future bailouts… [BBC]

Emerging Nations Push for Say in Global Economy‎. Developing countries will this week demand a louder voice at the World Bank and the IMF, now that they are contributing more funds and it's a euro zone country, Greece, that is in need of a rescue plan. [Reuters]

India Opposition Party Protests against High Food Prices. Thousands of people have gathered in the Indian capital, Delhi, to take part in an opposition rally to protest against rising food prices. [BBC]

Official Development Assistance 2009: Poverty On the Up as EU Aid Falls. The figures on official development assistance (ODA) in 2009, published today by the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee, paint a bleak picture. [Eurodad]

Domestic
Report Links School Lunches to National Security. Many American children are so overweight from being fed french fries, pizza and other unhealthy foods at school lunchrooms that they cannot handle the physical rigors of being in the military, a group of retired officers say in a new report. [AP]

The 10 Scariest Charts of the Recession. Check out these charts from the recession's still lingering impact… [Huffington Post]

Ill Fares the Land. Something is profoundly wrong with the way we live today. For thirty years we have made a virtue out of the pursuit of material self-interest… [The New York Review of Books]

Climate Change/Environment
Polluting Nations Downplay Goals for Cancun Climate Conference. The biggest polluting nations are downplaying goals for climate-change talks in December after failing last year to agree on a global treaty, the top U.S. climate negotiator said. [Bloomberg]

African Agriculture Suffers from Erratic Climate. From Africa's humid jungles and cocoa plantations to its growing semi-deserts and wilting maize fields, erratic weather linked to climate change may be ruining subsistence crops and export commodities alike. [AlertNet]

Senate Republicans Move to Bar NEPA Analysis of Climate Change Impacts. Republican senators introduced legislation that would block White House efforts to require federal agencies to consider climate change in environmental analyses of proposed projects. [The New York Times]

International
Afghan Officials Want to Direct More Foreign Aid. Tired of their backseat role, Afghan government officials are increasingly standing up to Washington and other foreign capitals… [AP]

India Raises Poverty-Rate Estimate. India's top policy-planning body raised its estimate of the nation's official poverty rate to 37.2% of the population from 27.5%, a key development as the government drafts legislation to give the poorest Indians a right to state-subsidized food grains. [The Wall Street Journal]

UK Water Imports 'Unsustainable'. The amount of water used to produce food and goods imported by developed countries is worsening water shortages in the developing world... [BBC]

A Troubling Trend in a Prosperous Society. The suicide rate [in South Korea] has doubled in the past decade and is now the highest in the industrialized world. [The Washington Post]

Domestic
Trust In Government? Poll Finds Nearly 80% of Americans Don't. America's "Great Compromiser" Henry Clay called government "the great trust," but most Americans today have little faith in Washington's ability to deal with the nation's problems. [Huffington Post]

Poll: Obama Slips, Other Dems Slide, Too. President Barack Obama's national standing has slipped to a new low after his victory on the historic health care overhaul, even in the face of growing signs of economic revival… [AP]

New Deal Safety Net Not Catching Today's Middle Class. The social safety net established as part of the New Deal in the 1930s is missing a huge swath of today's middle class... [Huffington Post]

Middle Class No More: New Jersey Family Scrapes By on Half its Former Income. Two years ago, Ben and Jennifer Agins of Somerset County, New Jersey, thought they were on track to finally purchase their first house. [Huffington Post]

Climate Change/Environment
Bolivia Hosts Mother Earth Talks. Delegates are gathering in the Bolivian city of Cochabamba for a grassroots alternative to last year's UN climate change summit in Copenhagen. [BBC]

U.N.-U.S. Split is Brewing over Climate Talks. A document accidentally left on a European hotel computer and passed to the Guardian reveals the US government's increasingly controversial strategy in the global UN climate talks. [Guardian]

Allergies Worse Than Ever? Blame Global Warming. Allergy sufferers like to claim — in between sniffles — that each spring's allergy season is worse than the last. But this year, they might actually be right. [Time]

International
The Cry from Haiti: 'We Want to Escape Misery to Return to Poverty.' As Haiti prepared its plea for help at today’s donors’ conference, a retired Norfolk orthopedic surgeon has been tending earthquake victims… [Times Online]

Africa Has 27 Million More People in Poverty Following Crisis. The global economic crisis pushed 27 million more people into poverty in Africa. [Business Week]

Recovery Could Leave Behind World's Poorest. The world's 49 least developed countries, described as the poorest of the poor, could feel the effects of the global economic crisis for decades. [Inter Press Service]

[Monstanto] Has Been the Prime Beneficiary of Food Crisis. Today, Monsanto is the virtual king of genetically modified food crops… [Expressbuzz.com]

Domestic
Private Sector Shed Jobs in March -- Analysts Expected Big Gain. Stocks traded mixed Wednesday after a payroll company's report provided a surprising reminder that the job market remains weak. [Huffington Post]

Real Food for All: The Role of Farmers' Markets. [O]ur food system has gone horribly wrong. While I don't believe this happened by intent, the results are dire for most Americans. [Atlantic Online]

Poor Results Doom Anti-Poverty Project Opportunity NYC. An ambitious city program that offered cash rewards to poor families that did the right thing isn't the cure-all officials hoped it would be. [New York Daily]

Climate Change/Environment
Lovelock: 'We Can't Save the Planet.' Professor James Lovelock, the scientist who developed Gaia theory, has said it is too late to try and save the planet. [BBC]

Will Apple's iPad Add to or Alleviate Climate Change? A new report linking Apple's iPad, which debuts Saturday, to global warming has prompted debate among environmentalists about the true planetary impact of these mobile devices. [USA Today]

Cap and Trade Dropped from Senate's Energy-Climate Change Bill. Cap and trade, a centerpiece of the Waxman-Markey Bill passed by the House, won't be included in the upcoming Senate version of the bipartisan energy-climate change legislation, according to its sponsors. [Examiner.com]

Today's top headlines:

International
Big Food Push Urged to Avoid Global Hunger. With the world's population soaring to 9 billion by mid-century, crop yields must rise, say the authors -- yet climate change threatens to slash them. [BBC] 

With Cheap Food Imports, Haiti Can't Feed Itself. The earthquake not only smashed markets, collapsed warehouses and left more than 2.5 million people without enough to eat. It may also have shaken up the way the developing world gets food. [The Washington Post]

U.S. Government Asks Congress to Sanction $370 Million. The Obama administration has urged Congress to release $370 million for humanitarian projects in the areas where Pakistan was conducting military operations against the militants. [Dawn.com]

Euro Trashed. The European Monetary Union, the basis of the euro, began with a grand illusion. [The New York Times]

Domestic
U.S. Consumer Spending Growth Slows. U.S. consumer spending rose in February at its slowest pace since September last year, providing further evidence of a fragile economic recovery. [BBC]

Free Advice on Money for Those with Little. For three years, Juan Maldonado worked in a sleek skyscraper in Midtown, reconciling stock trades at a Lehman Brothers subsidiary that managed $216 billion in assets. [The New York Times]

An Economic Puzzle Bernanke Can't Solve. It's a mystery that has puzzled even Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke: if the U.S. economy is growing rapidly, why isn't it creating jobs? [ABC News]

Climate Change/Environment
World Deforestation Decreases, but Remains Alarming in Many Countries. World deforestation, mainly the conversion of tropical forests to agricultural land, has decreased over the past 10 years but continues at an alarmingly high rate in many countries. [Food and Agriculture Association of the United Nations]

Peru Hails Western Carbon Offsetting Programmes. Nestle Waters France wants to offset emissions from its factories in the West by buying trees in a rainforest thousands of miles away. [BBC] 

Where Have All the Green Jobs Gone? When the financial crisis first hit about 18 months ago, many politicians claimed "green jobs" would be the answer to reviving economic growth. [BBC]