Red Cross warns of food riots over soaring prices

I was planning on doing another post this morning before I went off to work, but then I saw this article, and knew I had to say something.

By BRADLEY S. KLAPPER, Associated Press Writer
Tue May 27

GENEVA – The Red Cross warned Tuesday of a possible surge in “food-related violence” because of soaring prices that are increasing hunger around the world.

Most of the debate surrounding the global food crisis has focused on boosting aid to poorer countries, but there is also concern about the potential for violence as people become desperate for food, said Jakob Kellenberger, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Kellenberger, whose agency serves as the guardian of the Geneva Conventions on the rules of war, said fallout from rising prices has already sparked violence, alluding to food riots that erupted in Haiti, Egypt and Somalia.

It’s not just a matter of higher prices, he said. “It becomes a question of survival, of just having access to food.”

Because this post was of a more serious nature than I usually get into in this blog– and because of the fact that I usually do considerably more research for my newsblog, Media Vulture, I decided to do my full report there, titled Let them eat sand.

Since I started my new job, which ends up consuming well over the normal 40 hours of work per week, I had to shape this story up in a hurry, so I’ll ask you to forgive me if it’s not the most well-crafted piece I’ve ever done there.

and btw… this thing about food riots spreading worldwide really has me quite upset.

(I’ve completely forgotten what I thought was so important when I left home this morning…)

4 Replies to “Red Cross warns of food riots over soaring prices”

  1. Boy you hit the nail on the head!Grain isn’t bringing down our gas prices, it is just raising the grain prices.And it doesn’t save anything environmentally. What it saves in the exhaust, it uses in the making of the fuel. Al Gore would shutter. (unless he was making money on it)The only reason to use it is to make someone rich.

  2. maybe i’m greedy, but i’ve had to cut back from three meals to two a day and i can foresee there might be a time when i can only afford to eat one meal a day. my dogs survive on one meal a day, guess a human can too. that is here in the USA, not in a foreign country either!

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