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PAKISTAN: What did you eat today?
LAHORE Wednesday, September 01, 2010 (IRIN) - For hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis forced by the floods to abandon their homes, food is a primary concern: some families have gone days without a meal. -
MALAWI: Food surplus creates political storm
JOHANNESBURG Wednesday, September 01, 2010 (IRIN) - A surplus production of maize, Malawi's staple food, will not prevent at least one million people from being food insecure, a forecast that has not pleased President Bingu wa Mutharika. -
NEPAL: Another blow to food security
KATHMANDU Tuesday, August 31, 2010 (IRIN) - - Farmers may reap as little as half of their normal harvests this year due to late monsoon rains in Nepal, a country constantly battling malnutrition and food insecurity, the World Food Programme (WFP) warns. -
IN-DEPTH: Food and nutrition crisis in Niger and the Western Sahel
DAKAR Tuesday, August 31, 2010 (IRIN) - The West African Sahel is facing one of the worst food and nutrition crises in recent years. -
SOMALIA: Mogadishu fighting cuts food supplies
NAIROBI Monday, August 30, 2010 (IRIN) - As the latest round of fighting in the Somali capital enters its eighth day, traders and civil society activists warn of food shortages due to the closure of many businesses and markets across the city, increasing pressure on the already food-insecure population. -
CAMEROON: Soaring child malnutrition in north
KOUSSERI Friday, August 27, 2010 (IRIN) - Northern Cameroon, as in much of Africa’s western Sahel band, has unusually high child malnutrition this lean season between harvests - high even for an impoverished region where poor nutrition is common and most of the five million people lack access to safe water and sanitation. -
In Brief: Chad under water
DAKAR Friday, August 27, 2010 (IRIN) - Flooding across Chad has destroyed homes, crops, livestock, wells and latrines in communities already pummelled by food shortages and high malnutrition, according to the UN. -
CAMBODIA: Record low water levels threaten livelihoods
PHNOM PENH Thursday, August 26, 2010 (IRIN) - Late rains and record low water levels in Cambodia's two main fresh water systems will affect food security and the livelihoods of millions, government officials and NGOs warn. -
NIGER: Small steps towards a sustainable future
DIFFA Thursday, August 26, 2010 (IRIN) - The population of Niger, one of the poorest countries in the world, is growing at an unsustainable rate, according to the authorities and civil society groups. If current growth rates of 3.3 percent per year remain unchanged, by 2050 Niger’s population will have reached 50 million. The current population is 15.2 million - and even at this level there is widespread malnourishment. -
PAKISTAN: Poorest hit by floods/Ramadan woes
LAHORE Wednesday, August 25, 2010 (IRIN) - During the Muslim month of fasting, Ramadan, charitable food hand-outs normally allow many of the poorest to eat the occasional decent meal, but this year things appear to be different because of the floods. -
SOMALIA: Good rains dent numbers needing help
NAIROBI Tuesday, August 24, 2010 (IRIN) - Two million Somalis, an estimated 27 percent of the total population, still need emergency and livelihood assistance, despite above-average seasonal rains boosting livestock farming and creating a bumper harvest of maize and sorghum, says a study by the Nairobi-based Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Union (FSNAU) of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). -
THAILAND: Insect influx threatens rice production
BANGKOK Tuesday, August 24, 2010 (IRIN) - Experts warn that a significant increase in the numbers of brown hoppers, a rice pest, in central Thailand, threatens production. -
CHAD: Malnutrition outstrips response
DAKAR Tuesday, August 24, 2010 (IRIN) - In parts of Chad acute malnutrition levels far exceed the international emergency threshold, according to a new study – fallout, partly, from crop failure hitting already fragile communities where access to basic health services is low and aid agencies are scarce. -
MOZAMBIQUE: Rat catchers try to end arson
MACOSSA Tuesday, August 24, 2010 (IRIN) - Albinio Matias, a Mozambican farmer, lost his daughter, Cassula, and his home to wildfires, which also damaged his crops for four consecutive years. Raising large domesticated rats could have saved him a great deal of pain. -
SUDAN: Fear of LRA causes thousands to flee in Western Equatoria
NZARA Monday, August 23, 2010 (IRIN) - Armed attacks blamed on the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in Southern Sudan’s Western Equatoria State have displaced thousands of civilians and undermined food security, say local and UN officials. -
KENYA: Mohamed Barre Ali, "Our land has become a warzone"
DADACHABULLA Friday, August 20, 2010 (IRIN) - Mohamed Barre Ali lives in Dadachabulla, in the northeastern Kenya area of Wajir South. Ali, an elder and chairman of the local peace committee, told IRIN how years of instability in neighbouring Somalia are affecting his village, about 10km from the border. -
SAHEL: Peanut pastes and milk powders to save children
DAKAR Friday, August 20, 2010 (IRIN) - Aid agencies in Niger and Chad have begun giving tens of thousands of malnourished children a product called Plumpy’doz to save them from sliding into often-fatal severe malnutrition. -
PAKISTAN: How will the global wheat market react to the floods?
JOHANNESBURG Friday, August 20, 2010 (IRIN) - Pakistan's wheat production in 2011 would need to halve before it caused ripples in the global market, but it is still too early to predict the output, says a leading economist and grains expert. -
SYRIA: Yellow wheat rust hits supplies
DAMASCUS Thursday, August 19, 2010 (IRIN) - Farmers in Syria already hit by a three-year drought are now experiencing a yellow wheat rust outbreak, which has caused widespread crop losses as well as shrivelled seeds. -
SUDAN: Referendum will "increase humanitarian needs"
JUBA Thursday, August 19, 2010 (IRIN) - Humanitarian needs in Southern Sudan, where some 4.3m people already need food assistance and fewer than one in 10 earns more than US$1 a day, are likely to escalate after next year’s referendum on secession, says a government minister. -
PAKISTAN: The flood, and the response
JOHANNESBURG Thursday, August 19, 2010 (IRIN) - On a tour of water-logged and rain-weary Pakistan, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the floods were the worst disaster he had ever seen. The response to the crisis has been less enthusiastic - only about half the US$459.7 million requested by the United Nations has materialized. -
NIGER: "We drew lots to decide which children to help"
BAGGA Wednesday, August 18, 2010 (IRIN) - Like millions of Nigeriens, residents of Bagga village, in the central region of Tahoua, have been struggling to find enough food to eat. Granaries are empty and harvests are not due for another two months. IRIN spoke to some of the villagers. -
LESOTHO-SWAZILAND: A customs union to prevent failed states
MBABANE Wednesday, August 18, 2010 (IRIN) - Increasing strains on a century-old, five-nation southern African customs union is raising questions as to whether the sovereignty of its poorest members - Lesotho and Swaziland - is sustainable, considering their burden of HIV/AIDS and the global economic slowdown, among other factors. -
ASIA: Signs of hope for higher rice yields
LOS BANOS Tuesday, August 17, 2010 (IRIN) - Scientists at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) report signs of progress in their efforts to enhance rice's photosynthetic efficiency to boost yields. -
YEMEN: Food aid delays hit IDPs in Amran Governorate
AMRAN Tuesday, August 17, 2010 (IRIN) - Thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the northern Yemeni governorate of Amran, including 1,800 in the governorate’s only IDP camp, Khaiwan, have been hit by food aid delivery delays, according to aid workers.
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