1 billion are facing hunger

ROME — The global financial meltdown has pushed the ranks of the world’s hungry to 1 billion, a grim milestone that poses a threat to peace and security, U.N. food officials said Friday.

Because of war, drought, political instability, high food prices and poverty, hunger now affects one in six people, according to the United Nations’ estimate.

The financial meltdown has compounded the crisis in what the U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization called a "devastating combination for the world’s most vulnerable.”

Compared with last year, there are 100 million more people who are hungry, meaning they consume fewer than 1,800 calories a day, the U.N. agency said.

Officials presenting the new estimates sought to stress the link between hunger and instability.

"A hungry world is a dangerous world,” said Josette Sheeran of the World Food Program. "Without food, people have only three options: They riot, they emigrate or they die.”



by the associated press

Thousands flee rainfall,Alligators,hunger,flooding Brazil

SAO MIGUEL DE ROSARIO, Brazil — The dirt road in front of her house is a river. Her fields of rice are underwater. And with water seeping into her home, Maria do Remedio Santos knows it’s time to leave.

Like 218,000 others in northern Brazil, Santos fled the worst rainfall and flooding in decades, braving newly formed rivers teeming with alligators and legless reptiles whose bite is excruciating.

Already, 36 people have been killed in the flooding. But authorities worried about thousands of people isolated for days with little food or clean water.

"There isn’t enough food, they even have a shortage of tents,” said Maranhao state’s Maj. Wellington Soares Araujo.

U.N. agency reports 1 billion face hunger

PARIS — The number of hungry people in the world could soon hit a record 1 billion, despite a recent drop in food prices, the U.N. food aid organization said Wednesday.

The recent financial crisis, though it has helped bring global food prices down, also has led to falling trade and lower development aid, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization’s general director, Jacques Diouf.

As a result of the crisis, an additional 104 million people were likely to go hungry this year — meaning they receive fewer than 1,800 calories a day, Diouf told reporters after a two-day meeting in Paris.

If the projection is accurate, that would mean approximately 1 billion people — or roughly one-sixth of the world’s population — will be hungry by the end of the year, he said.

"Food security is a matter of peace and security in the world,” he said, stressing that the food production will have to double by 2050 just to keep pace with population growth.



by the associated press