Asia Needs Funds to Battle Food Crisis

Move 'just a little fixing up,' Philippine government says

(NEWSER) - Delegates attending an international anti-poverty conference in Manila this week were shielded from unsightly poverty by a wall hastily erected by the Philippine government, reports the AP . The makeshift wall put up before the Asian Development Bank conference hid the view of a sprawling slum along a creek from visitors traveling from the airport to downtown Manila. Critics called the move reminiscent of the Marcos regime but a spokesman for President Benigno Aquino defended it, saying "any country will do a little fixing up before a guest comes." More»

Hawaii hosts movement to support the nutritious stuff

(NEWSER) - It’s highly nutritious and some say it could alleviate world hunger; trouble is, it’s not too appetizing. “You have to kind of fool people to get them to try it,” a chef tells the Wall Street Journal . That may be worth it, breadfruit supporters say: A movement of sorts has developed around the food, known as ‘ulu in Hawaii. “Think of sautéed breadfruit as a platform for any kind of cuisine or flavor,” says a woman running a grove on Maui. More»

Group aims to raise awareness, not money

(NEWSER) - Bono, George Clooney, Colin Farrell, and a host of celebrities spout the F-word in a new ad with a simple message: "F*** famine." (Don't worry, it's still SFW, thanks to a lot of censoring.) "Famine is the real obscenity," explains Bono in the video. The commercial points people to his anti-poverty group ONE, which aims to focus attention on the famine in the Horn of Africa, especially Somalia, the Telegraph reports. More»

Droughts make matters worse in Brazil, Kyrgyzstan, elsewhere

(USER SUBMITTED) - Between June and December 2010, 44 million people across the world were pushed into poverty by rising food prices. The price of many agricultural commodities increased by more than 25%, and for many countries that rely heavily on grains such as wheat for sustenance, prices may not go back down for years because of damage from recent droughts. Using a recent World Bank study, this analysis from 24/7 Wall Street looks at the 10 low- or middle-income countries where food prices have increased the most. More»

(NEWSER) - While world leaders waste bicker, the global economic crisis hurts more than your 401(k), Nicholas Kristof writes in the New York Times. The crisis will cause another 22 children to die every hour in 2009—and that’s the World Bank’s best-case scenario. So it’s really discouraging when European leaders indulge their “penchant for sniping at the Unites States instead of doing more to resolve the mess.” More»