WFP Chief Warns Of Growing Crisis For World's Hungry

WFP Chief Warns Of Growing Crisis For World's Hungry

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WFP Executive Director Josette Sheeran released this statement in London.

LONDON - In the week that marks the first anniversary of the global financial crisis, there are more hungry people in the world and less food aid than ever before. For the world’s most vulnerable, the perfect storm is hitting with a vengeance.

The double whammy of the financial crisis and the still record high food prices around the world is delivering a devastating blow. Throw in a storm, a drought and a conflict and you have a recipe for disaster.

WFP’s budget to feed 108 million people in 74 countries this year is US$6.7 billion. But today, we have just US$2.6 billion. Donors have been extremely generous, but the fact is that the cost of food is still high, needs have gone up and this requires the world to step up to the plate in a bigger way.

We are making an urgent plea to the world that as the green shoots of economic recovery are appearing, we do not forget those who are most in need, and who have been hit hardest by this crisis.

Today in the United States and much of Europe, more people are relying on government safety nets for food and support than perhaps ever before, but for 80 per cent of the world, there is perhaps no safety net.

We urgently need an additional US$3 billion to meet those needs, which is less than 0.01 per cent of what was put on the table to stabilise the world financially. We think this is critical for the world’s peace and stability.

At our current funding levels, we will – in October – have to cut our services throughout the world, including to half of those we are trying to reach in Kenya. We will be reaching one-fifth of those we have been targeting due to the impact of high food prices in Bangladesh. In Somalia we will have to cut rations by half. Around the world, there are many more examples like this.

Oppression in Tibet: Is it about mainland Tibet or natural resources in Tibet?

The director of Asia America Initiative (AAI), Mr. Albert Santoli, has written a brief about the real intention of China in Tibet. He argues that the Chinese are more interested in controling natural resources in Tibet. He writes:

"The struggle for survival of the Tibetan people under Chinese occupation has been largely depicted as a human rights tragedy. There is, however, a significant strategic dimension to China's behavior.
Beijing's control of Tibet's vast landscape, its water resources, mineral and natural wealth, as well as its strategic location on "the roof of the world," is a major component of China's plans for expanded political, military and economic influence on a global scale"

Here are some of the little know facts about Tibet

• Tibet is the largest region of China, encompassing one-eighth of the empirical land mass. This does not include the historical and resource-rich Tibetan provinces of Kham and Amdo, which are larger than the Chinese official Tibet Autonomous Region, and were annexed by China after the 1950 invasion.
• Deposits of uranium in the hills around Lhasa are considered the largest in the world. Tibet is also rich in gold, copper, zinc, lithium and other scarce minerals.
• There are at least three major nuclear weapons bases in Tibet. The "Ninth Academy," China's primary nuclear weapons research and design facility is located in Haibei on the Tibetan plateau.
• Deforestation by Chinese loggers is rampant. At least 50 percent of Tibet's ancient forests have been destroyed, causing severe environmental damage, flooding and ecological devastation.
  Tibetans are now a minority population in the capitol Lhasa and the Tibet Autonomous Region, and are vastly outnumbered in the annexed territories. In the Amdo region, now the Chinese Qinghai province, in 1953 there were only 100,000 Han Chinese. According to the official Chinese Statistical Yearbook, in 1985 there were 2.5 million Chinese compared to only 750,000 thousand Tibetans.
• The ethnic ratio has gotten much more out of balance since 1992, when Deng Xiaoping began advocating the settlement of Han Chinese from other regions to Tibet and the Muslim Xinjiang region. Han settlers were given economic subsidies and other incentives and had houses and shops built for them by the government.
• The UN and the West have enabled and funded this cultural genocide by investing in the railroad into Tibet, which was opened in 2006. Under "economic development," as well as the relocation of thousands at least 130,000 Han settlers into the fertile Lhasa Valley.