Global food prices are at their lowest level in years, but thanks to the exceptionally strong US dollar poor people in developing countries suffering severe climate shocks are seeing no benefit.
Author: WHES
Food firms slow to address twin scourges of undernutrition and obesity. Nutrition index says food and drink industry moving too slowly in providing healthy food, and criticises marketing of breast milk substitutes
Ali Khumal holds up a photo of himself when he worked as a driver for ISAF forces in Afghanistan. The Taliban accused him of aiding the enemy and he was forced to flee with his family to Indonesia. Photo: © Jessica Sallabank/IRIN.SeeGlobal Access to Nutrition Index 2016
Thousands of farmer suicides prompt India to set up $1.3bn crop insurance scheme
Women working the fields in India where a vast number farm, but make little money. Photo: © Neeta Lal/IPS
Briefing: All you need to know about sieges in Syria
At precisely the same time as aid lorries pulled into the besieged Syrian village of Madaya on Monday, too late to save those who had already starved to death, convoys also entered the besieged areas of Fua and Kefraya.
GOP policy forum: Its high notes and low notes
It’s encouraging that six Republican presidential candidates appeared today in South Carolina to discuss poverty, and they advanced some positive proposals. Jeb Bush called for expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) for low-income workers not raising children, essentially endorsing a proposal from both President Obama and House Speaker Paul Ryan, while Chris Christie and others spoke of adopting or expanding state Earned Income Tax Credits. Various candidates, and Speaker Ryan, talked about reforming federal and state sentencing guidelines to reduce incarceration for people using drugs, and trying to strengthen the labor-market prospects of people who’ve been involved with the criminal justice system. Several speakers talked about apprenticeship programs, vocational education, and early childhood education, which can be constructive approaches in boosting skills and mobility.
Republican candidates, minus Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, play nice at poverty forum
COLUMBIA, S.C. — After a week filled with attack ads and months of caustic debates, six of the Republicans running for president gathered in the same place on Saturday and showed they can, after all, get along.
Syrian government to allow aid, loosening the stranglehold on the starving city of Madaya
Deportation raids to continue, despite outcry
The deportations have brought the divisive issue of illegal immigration once again to the political forefront. The raids were the first large-scale effort to deport families who had fled violence and poverty in Central America in 2014 and 2015. More than 100,000 families with adults and children crossed the southwestern border.
India needs to “Save its Daughters” through education and gender equality. India ranks 130th of 155 countries in newly released gender inequality index.
Women constitute nearly half of the country’s 1.25 billion people and gender equality — whether in politics, economics, education or health — is still a distant dream for most. This fact was driven home again sharply by the recently released United National Development Programme’s Human Development Report (HDR) 2015 which ranks India at a lowly 130 out of 155 countries in the Gender Inequality Index (GII). India trails behind most Asian countries, including lesser developed Bangladesh and Pakistan which rank 111 and 121 respectively, and fares not much ahead of war-ravaged Afghanistan at 152.
African women organize to reclaim agriculture against corporate takeover (from an interview with Mphatheleini Makaulele)
The real role of women is in the seed. It is the women who harvest, select, store, and plant seeds. Our seeds come from our mothers and our grandmothers. To us, the seed is the symbol of the continuity of life. Seed is not just about the crops. Seed is about the soil, about the water, and about the forest.
