Africa

Meles Zenawi, Ethiopian leader, dies at 57

by David Moll New York Times August 21, 2012

Meles Zenawi, Ethiopia’s repressive prime minister, who lifted his country from the ruins of civil war and transformed it into one of Africa’s fastest-growing economies and one of the United States government’s closest African allies, died on Monday, state television reported. He was 57....

Food: How bad is the crisis?

by IRIN News August 15, 2012

Lower output forecasts for US maize and soybeans and wheat from Russia in 2012/13 have been jumped on by the international media as evidence that a food crisis is almost certainly on the way....

The Karimojong are moving away from nomadic ways of life and adopting agro-pastoralism. The UN World Food Programme (WFP), which has provided food aid to the arid northeastern Uganda region for over 40 years, has significantly scaled back and changed the dynamics of its Karamoja operations. These now support 150,000 people in extremely vulnerable households, down from one million in 2009. Photo: Jane Some/IRIN (file photo)

Uganda: Weaning Karamoja off food aid

by IRIN News August 9, 2012

Uganda's arid northeastern Karamoja region has been dependent on food aid for decades, but new programmes by the government and its partners aim to bring an end to the cycle of relief and see the traditionally nomadic Karimojong become more self-sufficient through more settled livelihoods....

Mali: Not a fragile state yet

by IRIN News August 8, 2012

Drissa Keita, 42, fled south to Bamako, the capital of Mali, with 18 family members when Islamist extremists overran Gao in the northeast in early April. Once a civil servant, he now lives eight to a room in his brother’s house, without electricity. “Conditions are very difficult… I want to re...

Kenya: Urban poor face rising food insecurity

by IRIN News August 6, 2012

Food insecurity is common in many rural parts of northern Kenya, but the country's rapidly growing urban population is increasingly also dealing with food insecurity, according to experts....

Malnourished children outside hospital in Gao, Mali. World Vision and Save the Children say that millions of families in the Sahel region are suffering in what is effectively a large-scale nutrition crisis. They say the main reason is not drought or food deficit, but a lack of protection against shock price rises. Photo: AFP

Food: Price shock hotspots

by IRIN News August 6, 2012

As global grain prices begin to climb, the Sahel countries of West Africa, those in the Horn, and in central and southern Africa - many of which depend mainly on imported cereals to feed their people - are most exposed to the impact of more expensive food, said the UN Food and Agriculture Organizati...

Saying Mali ‘Is our country,’ militias train to oust Islamists

by Adam Nossiter New York Times August 5, 2012

MOPTI, Mali — Hundreds of young men are stuffed into makeshift training camps near this provincial capital, arising at 4 a.m. for physical exercises and simulated hand-to-hand combat in preparation for the day when they can free their north Mali homeland from the radical Islamists whose harsh rule...

Amidst drought and famine, Niger leads West Africa in addressing crisis (video)

by Fred de Sam Lazaro PBS Newshour July 12, 2012

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  • For the past 50 years, since its founding in 1976, the mission of World Hunger Education Service is to undertake programs, including Hunger Notes, that
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