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Saturday, November 14, 2009
UN Says Hunger Stunts Some 200 Million Children
Nearly 200 million children in poor countries have stunted growth because of insufficient nutrition, according to a new report published by UNICEF Wednesday before a three-day international summit on the problem of world hunger.
The head of a U.N. food agency called on the world to join him in a day of fasting ahead of the summit to highlight the plight of 1 billion hungry people.
Jacques Diouf, director-general of the Food and Agriculture Organization, said he hoped the fast would encourage action by world leaders who will take part in the meeting at his agency's headquarters starting Monday.
The U.N. Children's Fund published a report saying that nearly 200 million children under five in poor countries were stunted by a lack of nutrients in their food.
More than 90 percent of those children live in Africa and Asia, and more than a third of all deaths in that age group are linked to undernutrition, according to UNICEF.
While progress has been made in Asia -- rates of stunted growth dropped from 44 percent in 1990 to 30 percent last year -- there has been little success in Africa. There, the rate of stunted growth was about 38 percent in 1990. Last year, the rate was about 34 percent.
South Asia is a particular hotspot for the problem, with just Afghanistan, Nepal, India, Bangladesh and Pakistan accounting for 83 million hungry children under five.
''Unless attention is paid to addressing the causes of child and maternal undernutrition today, the costs will be considerably higher tomorrow,'' said UNICEF executive director Ann M. Veneman in a statement.
Diouf said he would begin a 24-hour fast on Saturday morning. The agency also launched an online petition against world hunger through a Web page featuring a video with Diouf counting from one to six to remind visitors that every six seconds a child dies from hunger.
The U.N. children's agency called for more strategies like vitamin A supplementation and breast-feeding to be rolled out more widely. That could cut the death rate in kids by up to 15 percent, UNICEF said.
Not everyone agreed.
''It is unrealistic to believe malnutrition can be addressed by any topdown U.N. scheme,'' said Philip Stevens, of International Policy Network, a London-based think tank. ''The progress UNICEF's report points to in improving nutrition is almost certainly a result of economic growth, not U.N. strategies.''
The Rome-based FAO announced earlier this year that hunger now affects a record 1.02 billion globally, or one in six people, with the financial meltdown, high food prices, drought and war blamed.
The agency hopes its World Summit on Food Security, with Pope Benedict XVI and some 60 heads of state so far expected to attend, will endorse a new strategy to combat hunger, focusing on increased investment in agricultural development for poor countries.
The long-term increase in the number of hungry is largely tied to reduced aid and private investments earmarked for agriculture since the mid-1980s, according to FAO.
Countries like Brazil, Nigeria and Vietnam that have invested in their small farmers and rural poor are bucking the hunger trend, FAO chief Diouf told the news conference.
They are among 31 countries that have reached or are on track to meet the goal set by world leaders nine years ago to cut the number of hungry people in half by 2015, he said.
''Eradicating hunger is no pipe dream,'' Diouf said. ''The battle against hunger can be won.''
FAO says global food output will have to increase by 70 percent to feed a projected population of 9.1 billion in 2050.
To achieve that, poor countries will need $44 billion in annual agricultural aid, compared with the current $7.9 billion, to increase access to irrigation systems, modern machinery, seeds and fertilizer as well as build roads and train farmers.
Agriculture investment from the private sector is also considered vital, and FAO is hosting a two-day forum in Milan starting Thursday with executives and business representatives to discuss how to coordinate such efforts.
The head of a U.N. food agency called on the world to join him in a day of fasting ahead of the summit to highlight the plight of 1 billion hungry people.
Jacques Diouf, director-general of the Food and Agriculture Organization, said he hoped the fast would encourage action by world leaders who will take part in the meeting at his agency's headquarters starting Monday.
The U.N. Children's Fund published a report saying that nearly 200 million children under five in poor countries were stunted by a lack of nutrients in their food.
More than 90 percent of those children live in Africa and Asia, and more than a third of all deaths in that age group are linked to undernutrition, according to UNICEF.
While progress has been made in Asia -- rates of stunted growth dropped from 44 percent in 1990 to 30 percent last year -- there has been little success in Africa. There, the rate of stunted growth was about 38 percent in 1990. Last year, the rate was about 34 percent.
South Asia is a particular hotspot for the problem, with just Afghanistan, Nepal, India, Bangladesh and Pakistan accounting for 83 million hungry children under five.
''Unless attention is paid to addressing the causes of child and maternal undernutrition today, the costs will be considerably higher tomorrow,'' said UNICEF executive director Ann M. Veneman in a statement.
Diouf said he would begin a 24-hour fast on Saturday morning. The agency also launched an online petition against world hunger through a Web page featuring a video with Diouf counting from one to six to remind visitors that every six seconds a child dies from hunger.
The U.N. children's agency called for more strategies like vitamin A supplementation and breast-feeding to be rolled out more widely. That could cut the death rate in kids by up to 15 percent, UNICEF said.
Not everyone agreed.
''It is unrealistic to believe malnutrition can be addressed by any topdown U.N. scheme,'' said Philip Stevens, of International Policy Network, a London-based think tank. ''The progress UNICEF's report points to in improving nutrition is almost certainly a result of economic growth, not U.N. strategies.''
The Rome-based FAO announced earlier this year that hunger now affects a record 1.02 billion globally, or one in six people, with the financial meltdown, high food prices, drought and war blamed.
The agency hopes its World Summit on Food Security, with Pope Benedict XVI and some 60 heads of state so far expected to attend, will endorse a new strategy to combat hunger, focusing on increased investment in agricultural development for poor countries.
The long-term increase in the number of hungry is largely tied to reduced aid and private investments earmarked for agriculture since the mid-1980s, according to FAO.
Countries like Brazil, Nigeria and Vietnam that have invested in their small farmers and rural poor are bucking the hunger trend, FAO chief Diouf told the news conference.
They are among 31 countries that have reached or are on track to meet the goal set by world leaders nine years ago to cut the number of hungry people in half by 2015, he said.
''Eradicating hunger is no pipe dream,'' Diouf said. ''The battle against hunger can be won.''
FAO says global food output will have to increase by 70 percent to feed a projected population of 9.1 billion in 2050.
To achieve that, poor countries will need $44 billion in annual agricultural aid, compared with the current $7.9 billion, to increase access to irrigation systems, modern machinery, seeds and fertilizer as well as build roads and train farmers.
Agriculture investment from the private sector is also considered vital, and FAO is hosting a two-day forum in Milan starting Thursday with executives and business representatives to discuss how to coordinate such efforts.
Protesters Clash With Police in Nepal
Communist protesters clashed with the police and surrounded the Singha Durbar, the seat of government in the center of the Nepalese capital, as they called for the resignation of the president, local news agencies reported Thursday.
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Rafiq Maqbool/Associated Press
Police stopped communist demonstrators from advancing during a protest in Katmandu on Thursday.
The demonstrators began gathering in Katmandu before dawn, many of them arriving on buses from outlying towns and villages, according to Nepalnews.com, and thousands of heavily armed National Police officers were mobilized.
Photos of the scene showed large crowds in the streets, and some reports said tens of thousands of protesters had assembled. Signs calling for “civilian supremacy” could be seen, as well as red flags bearing the hammer-and-sickle emblem.
Most civil servants and politicians were able to reach their offices in the Singha Durbar, although local schools were closed for the day, The Himalayan Times reported.
The protesters were led by Pushpa Kamal Dahal, the former guerrilla fighter better known as Prachanda, who had been the leader of the 10-year Maoist insurgency that overthrew the Nepalese monarchy in 2006. The Nepalese republic was formed in May 2008.
Earlier in the week, Prachanda warned the government that he and his supporters could be forced to “take up arms” if the government used the police and military to block demonstrations, Nepalnews.com reported.
As the head of the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), Prachanda was elected prime minister in August 2008. But he resigned from office on May 4 when the president, Ram Baran Yadav, overruled his firing of the head of the army, Gen. Rookmangud Katawal.
Prachanda and other Maoist leaders have charged that the general defied a United Nations-backed peace accord by refusing to integrate about 20,000 former guerrilla fighters — most of them jobless and living in United Nations camps — into the Nepalese military.
Since withdrawing from the coalition government, Prachanda and his supporters have held several mass protests demanding the resignation of
the government and the removal of the president.
Friday, November 6, 2009
ELLIS STUDENTS PRACTICING LETTER WRITING FOR DEFENCE OF LEARNING PRESENTATION.
Dear panelist,
I am sulayman kebbeh from gambia.I have been here for one year. In this defense of learning presentation I am going to present English class. My topic from English class is in question form that is what happens when your identity clashes to the new culture or in new country. We have been talking about this topics little while before.
I want to share some perspective about my strengths and weaknesses. First my strengths are math and English because I have shown work that had creative solution in math class .I have methodological , critical, and logical thinking because I have shared ideas about general questions in English class. My weaknesses are science and history. I think I am concentrating in science class but what happens usually is I do not understand teacher pronunciations. I am having hard time s to understand science because English is my second language. In history class I feel like I am attaining tough class because it’s very hard to express and to collect new ideas around the entire world. I think I would be able to catch up in future because I am speaking with the friends who is speak s English very well and who is organized by the way.
I have shown positive participant in Ellis community to help Ellis community to be stronger by moving materials, respecting people with gender, value, and culture, and contributing help to the friends by solving the problem.
Ultimately, I am catching up with English pronoun citation and its grammars. I would like to suggest Ellis to start teaching grammar in English classes. Apparently, ours community is becoming stronger because of our collaboration and contribution. That’s all what I wanted to talk about.
I am sulayman kebbeh from gambia.I have been here for one year. In this defense of learning presentation I am going to present English class. My topic from English class is in question form that is what happens when your identity clashes to the new culture or in new country. We have been talking about this topics little while before.
I want to share some perspective about my strengths and weaknesses. First my strengths are math and English because I have shown work that had creative solution in math class .I have methodological , critical, and logical thinking because I have shared ideas about general questions in English class. My weaknesses are science and history. I think I am concentrating in science class but what happens usually is I do not understand teacher pronunciations. I am having hard time s to understand science because English is my second language. In history class I feel like I am attaining tough class because it’s very hard to express and to collect new ideas around the entire world. I think I would be able to catch up in future because I am speaking with the friends who is speak s English very well and who is organized by the way.
I have shown positive participant in Ellis community to help Ellis community to be stronger by moving materials, respecting people with gender, value, and culture, and contributing help to the friends by solving the problem.
Ultimately, I am catching up with English pronoun citation and its grammars. I would like to suggest Ellis to start teaching grammar in English classes. Apparently, ours community is becoming stronger because of our collaboration and contribution. That’s all what I wanted to talk about.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Thursday, October 1, 2009
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