“Governments need to wake up to the gravity of this crisis and ensure they are ready to respond before the situation gets worse,” Asuntha Charles, head of Oxfam in Afghanistan, said in a statement.
Nearly three quarters of people living in the affected areas say they will run out of food in less than two months, Oxfam said.
“The drought has completely destroyed the wheat crop in some areas. People are reducing the amount of food they are eating and selling what little they have,” Charles said.
Powered by global non-profit micro-lending organisation KIVA, FITE aims to empower women in developed and developing countries worldwide through the provision of micro-loans. Since its official launch in South Africa in February, 30 South African women have been recipients of loans through FITE.
Skincare brand Dermalogica is the founding partner of FITE. "Through the FITE initiative, Dermalogica aims to empower over 25,000 women in business around the world in developing and developed countries in the next two years," said Lauren Michlo, general manager of Dermalogica South Africa.
Each time a consumer buys a specially marked Dermalogica product and enters the code supplied on the packaging into the FITE website, the company makes a one-dollar donation towards the global FITE fund.
The initiative also enables consumers to become direct lenders by making donations in increments of 25 dollars through the FITE website. And the lenders have the power to choose which projects they would like to support by selecting from a list of candidates.
Once the loan has been awarded, lenders are kept up to date on the recipient's progress via e-mails from KIVA. Once a loan has been paid back, that money is put towards a loan for a new recipient. Loan amounts and repayment schedules vary depending on the business plan of individual candidates.
Nigeria’s Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) has accused state governments of overlooking early warning messages in the wake of flooding across the country that has killed an estimated 140 people and displaced tens of thousands.
In early 2011 the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NIMET) predicted heavy rainfall. Based on this, NEMA sent out early warning messages via radio in May 2011 to governments and citizens in seven states, including Kano in the north. “We advertised… for both government and people to start cleaning up drainage ditches, and we formally wrote to state governments, including Kano State, to prepare for the expected flooding this year,” said NEMA coordinator Musatafa Suleiman.
The Nigeria Red Cross also put out early warnings based on information it received from Africa’s climate prediction centre, African Centre of Meteorological Application for Development.
But according to Suleiman, “few states adhered to the early warning messages and started clearing their drainage systems or canals for easy passage of floodwater.”
NEMA is trying to improve its information-gathering and dissemination so it can play a stronger early warning role in future.
But local authorities need to shift from a reactive to a proactive role to fund and map out clearer emergency preparedness plans from now on, said Umar Maigari, disaster management coordinator for the Nigeria Red Cross in Bauchi State in northern Nigeria. Several states have no emergency preparedness measures at all, and those that do, are poorly funded.
Top preparedness priorities are to clear drainage ditches and move communities in flood-plains to new locations, according to NEMA. Particularly at risk in most states are densely populated, low-income areas of cities, where refuse dumping and inappropriate construction of roads and buildings have blocked drains, Charles Oji, a town planner in Warri (a major city in Delta State), told IRIN.
Abiola Ajimobi, governor of Oyo State in the southwest, gave a seven-day demolition notice on 1 September to house-owners living on drainage paths in the capital, Ibadan. Residents told IRIN they were not given enough notice of the move.
It is not too late to strategize preparedness activities for the 2012 rainy season, said NEMA’s Suleiman. Very little progress has been made in these areas since 2010, when heavy rains hit the north, displacing two million people after local authorities were forced to open flood-gates on swollen rivers.
NIMET head Anthony Anuforom anticipates parts of Bauchi, Oyo and Cross Rivers states may experience more flooding in the next few weeks.
In 1962, Michael Harrington wrote about the Other America saying "The millions who are poor in the United States tend to become increasingly invisible. Here is a great mass of people, yet it takes an effort of the intellect and will even to see them."
Today, nearly 50 years later, the Census shows us the largest number of people living in poverty in America in the 52 year history of the Census.
The numbers are intolerable, inexplicable, incomprehensible, and they fill us with outrage.
At The Culture Zone we ask - what would Michael Harrington say? What would YOU say?
Since Mohamed Elmi, 69, and his family arrived at a camp for famine refugees in Mogadishu they have barely had enough to eat. Armed gunmen running the camp steal their food and prevent them from leaving to search for aid elsewhere, he says.
Elmi told IPS that this happens because aid agencies deliver food to the people running the camp for distribution and not to the famine victims themselves. And they are prevented from leaving because aid will no longer be delivered to the camps if they do.
"I don’t know who is running this, but we have said time and again that we are never, never given anything by the foremen running (the camp). Let them kill me if they want… We cannot leave here to find a better place," an emancipated Elmi told IPS. He asked IPS not to publish the name of his camp as he fears for his safety.
Tens of thousands of desperately hungry Somalis displaced from the drought-stricken south are not receiving the food aid meant for them. Gunmen have set up unathourised refugee camps in Mogadishu just to steal the food delivered by humanitarian agencies. It is believed the food is being sold on the local markets.
There are dozens of camps with thousands of families in the bullet-scarred Somali capital of Mogadishu. Not all are official camps. These are often run by men from the local clan militias who divert famine victims entering the city to the ‘camps’ they have set up in deserted buildings in Mogadishu.
This is what happened to Mahad Iyo, 54, who arrived in Mogadishu in search of aid in August.
Iyo said that he and other displaced people walked for days to reach Mogadishu. At the city’s entrances they were greeted by armed gangs and were directed to a disused government building. The building was filled with refugees who had constructed makeshift tents using sticks and old ragged cloth. "They want to use us for their own benefit," Iyo now says of the men who so eagerly offered him help when he first arrived. "We are not registered for the aid and neither are we given regular help. Food and other essentials are brought to the camp by the agencies but they are quickly taken away by the foremen," said Iyo.
Mohieldin was one of a three-member team that led the country’s deeply unpopular economic polices that included an aggressive privatisation programme and drastic cuts to government expenditures on subsidies and the social sector.
The team included Foreign Trade and Industry Minister Rashid Muhammad Rashid and Economy Finance Minister Youssef Boutros-Ghali. Both are now on the run outside of Egypt after Egyptian courts found them guilty of corruption, misuse of public funds and profiteering.
Numerous allegations of business misconduct have been filed with the Egyptian General Prosecution Office against Mohieldin. He has also been the subject of dozens of local articles that question his role in ‘sweetheart deals’ involving the sale of public assets at below market rates. Seven other ministers who worked with Mohieldin are now serving prison terms for corruption while others are facing similar investigations.
Mohieldin, who travelled to Egypt several times from the start of his World Bank tenure until the revolution began on Jan. 25, hasn’t set foot in Egypt since the country started a series of probes into widespread corruption under Mubarak.
GAP said it was seeking Mohieldin’s financial disclosure records from the World Bank after it became clear that he is the subject of controversy in Egypt and at the international level.
GAP maintains that the bank’s response of publishing abbreviated forms of the documents will "not suffice to clarify the questions that now surround the alleged business conduct of Mr. Mohieldin as Egypt’s former Investment Minister."
In a study to see how these mosquitoes would fare when trying to get a mate, they found that female mosquitoes cannot tell if the males they mate with are fertile, or spermless and therefore unable to fertilise the females' eggs.
The researchers said findings suggest that in future it might be possible to control the size of the malaria-carrying mosquito population by introducing a genetic change that makes males sterile. Female mosquitoes would then unknowingly mate with the modified males and fail to produce any offspring.
Malaria is a mosquito-borne disease that affects up to 300 million people and kills nearly 800,000 every year. Its threat is greatest in Africa, where the World Health Organisation says a child dies of malaria about every 45 seconds.
Public health experts are working towards the eventual global eradication of malaria, but progress is slow and there is a constant need for better and cheaper ways to get there.
"In the fight against malaria, many hope that the ability to genetically control the mosquito vector will one day be a key part of our armoury," said Flaminia Catteruccia from Imperial's life sciences department, who led the study.
But she added that for these currently theoretical control ideas to work in practice, scientists have to establish whether the insects would continue to mate as normal, unaware that their sexual mechanisms had been tampered with.
Thailand is fast becoming a transit country for North Koreans fleeing severe food shortages and poverty, authorities say.
Thousands now make their way along the more than 5,000km, often-dangerous route, through China and Laos to the kingdom en route to South Korea.
Since 2004, when just 46 North Korean asylum seekers were reported by Thailand's Immigration Bureau, the numbers have jumped to nearly 2,500 in 2010.
Thailand is the easiest route to access and the most accommodating, compared with Mongolia or Vietnam, where border security is tighter and in some cases, those fleeing have been sent back to face harsh punishment.
The trend is likely to continue, judging by a recent report by the World Food Programme (WFP), citing a bitter winter, crop loss, and lack of resources to secure cereal supplies from outside the country.
"We are at a crossroads right now: if we manage to get food into the country we can reach thousands of hungry children and their mothers on time," Claudia von Roehl, WFP country director, told IRIN from Pyongyang, the North Korean capital. "Our primary concern is for those who are most vulnerable to food shortages - children, mothers and the elderly."
Government rations - mainly cereals, maize and rice - provide only about a third of people's daily food needs; some families are already resorting to negative survival strategies, including cutting down on the size and number of meals, the UN food agency reports.
In recent months, the government has distributed between 150-200 grams per person per day, while the full ration is close to 600g.
Eating grass
One young women just arriving in Thailand said her family in North Korea had cut down to one meal a day.
"We never had any days that we felt full in our stomach. Many times we cut the grass in the forest to eat."
The soft-spoken 26-year-old former teacher, who wished to remain anonymous, began her exodus six years ago, by crossing the 526km Tumen River into China and then spending five years working to pay off the smuggler fees that made her escape possible.
Local Chiang Rai Police Chief Potsawee Chotienchaikun has talked to many of the asylum-seekers who regularly surrender themselves to authorities after reaching the Mekong River.
Thailand's reputation as a safe port of entry for North Koreans has spread by word of mouth, he believes.
"I think the people who have escaped in the past have made contact with their friends in North Korea and told them where it is safe to go. The South Koreans welcome the people because they are the same nationality, they speak the same language and the South Koreans have enough resources to take care of them."
Those resources reportedly include an initial re-settlement subsidy of six million won (US$5,330) per person and housing assistance.
But despite the fact that part of the subsidy goes straight into the hands of the traffickers who orchestrated the escape, the overall benefits seem to outweigh the losses.
"Here in Thailand it's quite clear that every North Korean who has arrived is being considered by the South Korean embassy and is being sent to South Korea," says the deputy director of Human Rights Watch's Asia division, Phil Robertson.
"There's a system here that works in terms of North Koreans who can reach their destination."
But the root of the problem remains the scarce food resources in North Korea, an isolated nation of more than 24 million; Robertson hopes the country will continue to allow in teams to assess the situation.
"We would continue to press for the advancement and openness that we've seen to be made permanent because people should not be allowed to starve."
Meanwhile, for the lucky few, the sight of the smiling Buddha on the Thai side of the Mekong River is a sign of hope.
"When I crossed into Thailand, I was very happy. My life is safe now and I realize that I have survived," said the former teacher.
According to media reports cited by North Korean Economy Watch, a weblog on North Korean economic issues, more than 20,000 North Korean defectors have arrived in South Korea since the 1950-1953 Korean War ended in a truce. The number does not account for the estimated tens of thousands hiding in China.
Unfortunately, the Dodd-Frank law has had unintended and devastating consequences, as I saw firsthand on a trip to eastern Congo this summer. The law has brought about a de facto embargo on the minerals mined in the region, including tin, tungsten and the tantalum that is essential for making cellphones.
The smelting companies that used to buy from eastern Congo have stopped. No one wants to be tarred with financing African warlords — especially the glamorous high-tech firms like Apple and Intel that are often the ultimate buyers of these minerals. It’s easier to sidestep Congo than to sort out the complexities of Congolese politics — especially when minerals are readily available from other, safer countries.
For locals, however, the law has been a catastrophe. In South Kivu Province, I heard from scores of artisanal miners and small-scale purchasers, who used to make a few dollars a day digging ore out of mountainsides with hand tools. Paltry as it may seem, this income was a lifeline for people in a region that was devastated by 32 years of misrule under the kleptocracy of Mobutu Sese Seko (when the country was known as Zaire) and that is now just beginning to emerge from over a decade of brutal war and internal strife.
The pastor at one church told me that women were giving birth at home because they couldn’t afford the $20 or so for the maternity clinic. Children are dropping out of school because parents can’t pay the fees. Remote mining towns are virtually cut off from the outside world because the planes that once provisioned them no longer land. Most worrying, a crop disease periodically decimates the region’s staple, cassava. Villagers who relied on their mining income to buy food when harvests failed are beginning to go hungry.
Meanwhile, the law is benefiting some of the very people it was meant to single out. The chief beneficiary is Gen. Bosco Ntaganda, who is nicknamed The Terminator and is sought by the International Criminal Court. Ostensibly a member of the Congolese Army, he is in fact a freelance killer with his own ethnic Tutsi militia, which provides “security” to traders smuggling minerals across the border to neighboring Rwanda.
Humanitarian officials say the number of drought-displaced families arriving in Mogadishu, Somalia's capital, has dropped in the past two weeks as more and more families cross the border into neighbouring Kenya and Ethiopia, while others go to the Al-Shabab-controlled town of Baidoa, in the south-central Bay region.
"Between 15 June and 15 July, we had about 500 families reaching Mogadishu every day but the number has since decreased to about 250 families daily," said Ahmed Abdi Muhumed, a programme manager for Muslim Aid in Somalia, a UK-based NGO.
Muhumed said Baidoa, 250km northwest of Mogadishu, was now home to between 6,000 and 7,000 drought-displaced families. Baidoa, capital of the Bay region, is the third-largest town in the country, after Mogadishu and Kismayo.
So far, Muhumed said, the NGO Islamic Relief and the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) were the only two aid organizations active in Baidoa. He added that Muslim Aid would begin operations there this week.
"We have assessed and found that between five and 10 children are dying in Baidoa daily due to starvation and diseases including malnutrition and diarrhoea; we are going to start food distribution and feeding this week," Muhumed said.
According to the UN, an estimated 300,000 people are in humanitarian emergency in Bakool and Lower Shabelle regions in south-central Somalia, two of five regions the UN has categorized as experiencing famine.
Muhumed said at least 150,000 out of the 300,000 people were at risk of starvation.
Nearer Mogadishu, in an area known as 50km, thousands of families are also at risk of starvation, according to Muslim Aid.
Muhumed said: "In the first days of our operations in and around Mogadishu, we found that many people preferred going to main urban centres, so we divided our operation into two: first, in 50km we distributed food and shelter to 2,000 families, then we distributed food to 3,000 families in camps for the internally displaced in Mogadishu."
Afgoye
The situation is deteriorating in the Afgoye corridor, west of Mogadishu, where up to 400,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) have sought refuge.
"The drought displacement has caused a livelihood emergency in Afgoye corridor because the numbers of new arrivals are so high and this has made the situation difficult even for the displaced who have been here for long," Muhumed said.
Al-Shabab authorities in Baidoa recently told journalists that only US$3,000 was needed to feed the drought-affected in the town, adding that Somalis in the diaspora had sent some money to help the vulnerable families.
At the same time, members of the Transitional Federal Parliament of Somalia in Bay and Bakool regions have expressed concern about the humanitarian crisis in their areas.
"We know that about 6,000-7,000 families are now in Baidoa; they have nothing," Mohamed Abdi Ganay, an MP from Bay region, said. "Most of the people are from Ufurow, Qansah-Dheere, Dinsor and Bakool areas. The ICRC [International Committee of the Red Crescent] has distributed food to 780 families but many others are still suffering."
Speaking on behalf of MPs from the two regions, Ganay said they were calling on Al-Shabab to allow humanitarian agencies access to the drought-displaced in the Bay and Bakool regions.
"So far, this access has not been granted; we are discussing with the government to see if we can find solutions," he said.
Our reporters visited one village in southern Ethiopia with a population of about 1,700 adults.
Despite being surrounded by other communities which are well fed and prosperous, this village, which cannot be named for fear of reprisals, is starving. We were told that in the two weeks prior to our team's arrival five adults and 10 children had died.
Lying on the floor, too exhausted to stand, and flanked by her three-year-old son whose stomach is bloated by malnutrition, one woman described how her family had not eaten for four days.
"We are living day to day on the grace of God," she said.
Another three-year-old boy lay in his grandmother's lap, listless and barely moving as he stared into space.
"We are just waiting on the crop, if we have one meal a day we will survive until the harvest, beyond that there is no hope for us," the grandmother said.
'Abandoned'
In another village 30 km (19 miles) away it was a similar story.
There our team met Yenee, a widow who along with her seven children is surviving by begging, eating leaves and scavenging scraps from the bins in the nearest town.
"The situation is desperate," she said. "We have been abandoned... It is a matter of chance if we live or die."
The two villages sit just 15km (9 miles) either side of a major town, surrounded by other communities where the populations are well fed and healthy. They are in desperate need, but no-one is helping.
According to local opposition members they are being punished for failing to vote for the ruling party, the Ethiopian Peoples' Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), which Mr Meles leads.
Further north a group of farmers alienated by Mr Meles' government met the BBC/Bureau team at a secret location on the edge of a remote village.
One farmer described how he had been ostracised for failing to support EPRDF: "Because of our political views we face great intimidation. We are denied the right to fertiliser and seeds because of political ideology," he said.
It is easy to get seduced by Cuba's impressive development indicators and its assertions of idealist possibilities. The statistics are certainly dramatic, as Overseas Development Institute research emphasised last year. And Fidel Castro has certainly contributed as many wise and progressive thoughts to the world as he has unfortunate ramblings. But there are serious problems at the heart of the Cuban development model that have been left unaddressed for far too long.
Castro's leadership was the key factor in rapidly rising living standards for the poorest. In 1958, under the Batista dictatorship, half of Cuba's children did not attend school. The literacy campaign begun by Castro in 1961 led, in 1970, to Unesco declaring Cuba the country with the highest primary and secondary school enrolment in Latin America. These development gains, among others, have continued to this day.
But there have been two broad consequences. First, a generation of educated young people aspire to more in terms of living standards and life chances than their parents ever did. It is no coincidence that the older generation is more uncritically supportive of the revolution than the young – it knows what Cuba was like before.
Second, state-led development and investment is costly, especially when the international context becomes less favourable. Relying on goodwill, volunteering and accumulated capital has worked perhaps longer than anyone anticipated, but eventually wealth must be created and that, as the critics have always maintained, means a platform for the private sector to grow.
So it is better late than never that Raúl Castro, Fidel's brother, has finally bowed to pressure and taken two major reforms through the national assembly. First, travel restrictions will be loosened, making it much easier for Cubans to travel abroad. And second, authorisation and encouragement will be given to small businesses. These follow on from other reforms and are part of a gradual but significant shift in Cuban development theory intended to strengthen a weak economy.
In Haiti, about 600,000 people are still in flimsy tents and shanties because of the January 2010 earthquake, strong winds whipped through palm trees in the capital while heavier rains fell further north, damaging homes as well as a cholera treatment center, said Marie Alta Jean-Baptiste, the country's civil defense director. But there were no reports of deaths.
In the capital, which has most of those left homeless by the earthquake, the rain was relatively light so far, but the government evacuated a few families from a camp for quake victims to a school that is being used as a storm shelter, said Jean-Joseph Edgard, an administrator in Haiti's Civil Protection Department.
...
There was reason for concern. A slow-moving storm in June triggered mudslides and floods in Haiti and killed at least 28 people. Widespread poverty makes it difficult for people to take even the most basic precautions.
Joceline Alcide stashed her two children' birth certificates and school papers in little plastic bags that aid groups handed out. It was her only means to protect herself.
"There really isn't much more we can do. We just got these bags," the 39-year-old Alcide said, standing outside her teepee-like tarp shelter.
