Tag Archives: Food Shortage

Zimbabwe empties female prisons in struggle to feed inmates

President Robert Mugabe and his wife Grace greet supporters of his ZANU (PF) party during the "One Million Man March", a show of support of Mugabe's rule in Harare

HARARE (Reuters) – Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has granted amnesty to all female prisoners except those on death row or serving life sentences, as prisons struggle to feed inmates due to lack of funding from the government.

Five prisoners died in March 2015 after being shot by police in a protest over food shortages, which turned violent as some of them attempted to break out of jail.

Mugabe announced the pardon through a government notice on Monday, without stating a reason for the move, and the release of prisoners started on Wednesday.

Zimbabwe Prison and Correctional Services spokeswoman Priscilla Mthembo said on Thursday there were 580 female inmates across the country’s 46 prisons, and those eligible would be set free. At the country’s top security jail in Harare, two female prisoners serving life sentences remained after the amnesty, while vetting was ongoing at other prisons.

In all, Mthembo said more than 2,000 prisoners would benefit from Mugabe’s pardon. These included all juveniles, irrespective of their crimes, as well as some men not serving time for serious crimes like murder, armed robbery, treason, rape or carjacking.

Zimbabwe’s prisons hold 20,000 inmates, more than their capacity of 17,000, causing congestion and shortages of everything from food to uniforms.

Under the constitution of the Southern African nation, Mugabe, who routinely pardons prisoners, is required to consult his cabinet on all amnesties.

(Reporting by MacDonald Dzirutwe; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)

Venzuela looters target chicken, flour amid worsening of shortages

A Venezuelan soldier stands guard next to people forming a line to try to buy cornmeal flour and margarine at a pharmacy in Caracas

By Anggy Polaco

SAN CRISTOBAL, Venezuela (Reuters) – Mobs in Venezuela have stolen flour, chicken and even underwear this week as looting increases across the crisis-hit OPEC nation where many basic products have run short.

Many people now get up in the dead of night to spend hours in long lines in front of supermarkets. But as more end up empty-handed and black market prices soar, plundering is rising in Venezuela, already one of the world’s most violent countries.

There is no official data, but rights group Venezuelan Observatory for Social Conflict reported 107 episodes of looting or attempted looting in the first quarter.

Videos of crowds breaking into shops, swarming onto trucks or fighting over products frequently make the rounds on social media, though footage is often hard to confirm.

In one of the latest incidents, several hundred people looted a truck carrying kitchen rolls, salt and shampoo after it crashed and some of its load tumbled out in volatile Tachira state on Thursday, according to a local official and witnesses.

Fifteen people were injured, including six security officials trying to restrain the crowd, said local civil protection official Luis Castrillon.

“There was a big scuffle … There were shots in the air and they fired tear gas,” said witness Manuel Cardenas, 40.

Such scenes are adding to an increasingly dire panorama in the South American oil exporter, where inflation is the highest in the world, the economy has been shrinking since early 2014, and there are frequent power and water cuts.

President Nicolas Maduro blames the crisis on the fall in global oil prices, a drought that has hit hydroelectric power generation and an “economic war” by right-wing businessmen and politicians.

But the opposition say he and his predecessor Hugo Chavez are to blame for disastrous statist economic policies.

They are pushing for a recall referendum this year to remove Maduro, 53, and trigger a new election.

In other looting incidents this week, a group of hooded motor bikers tried, also on Thursday, to steal some 650 sacks of flour as they were being delivered to a deposit in the nearby Andean state of Merida.

Security forces managed to stop the theft, but two National Guards and four policemen were injured in the melee, according to a local security official.

On Wednesday, looters in Merida broke into a state-run supermarket, stealing food, shelves and even doors after learning chicken was being stored there. An underwear store was plundered a day earlier in the same state.

Socialist Party officials have condemned the looters as criminals and smugglers seeking to make a quick buck from re-selling. Maduro has vowed a tough hand against violence and warned his enemies are plotting a “coup” akin to this week’s suspension of Brazilian leader Dilma Rousseff.

Critics counter that hunger and desperation are pushing people to theft, and warn the situation will only worsen barring urgent policy changes such as an easing of strict currency and price controls that have crimped imports and production.

(Additional reporting by Daniel Kai; Writing by Alexandra Ulmer; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne and Tom Brown)

South Sudan food crisis may almost double to 5.3 million

GENEVA (Reuters) -Up to 5.3 million people in South Sudan may face a severe food shortages during this year’s lean season, the U.N. World Food Program said on Monday,nearly double the number in the first three months of the year.

From January to March, 2.8 million people were classed as being in “crisis” or “emergency” food situations, with about 40,000 thought to be suffering an outright famine.

The rising hunger comes despite attempts to end more than two years of war, which started in December 2013 when President Salva Kiir sacked his first vice president Riek Machar, triggering ethnically charged violence.

Some fighting continues, but Kiir was able to name a new cabinet in late April, including former rebels and members of the opposition, after Machar returned to Juba and got back his old job.

“Internal food security analysis shows that South Sudan will face the most severe lean season in 2016 since its independence, driven by insecurity, poor harvests, and displacement in some areas of the country,” said a WFP report published on Monday.

“As many as 5.3 million people may face severe food insecurity, with particular areas of concern in the non-conflict affected states of Northern Bahr el Ghazal and Eastern Equatoria.”

During the 2015 lean season, which runs from March to September, about 4.6 million people were classed as severely “food insecure”, WFP said previously.

The most severe conditions are in Unity State, where a team of food security experts found a risk of “widespread catastrophe” during a visit late last year.

The United Nations says 1.69 million South Sudanese are displaced within the country and another 712,000 have fled into neighbouring countries. The U.N. humanitarian plan for South Sudan has received only 27 percent of the $1.29 billion needed.

(Reporting by Tom Miles; Editing by Tom Heneghan)

Venezuela economic crisis means fewer meals, more starch

Struggling Venezuelan family

By Carlos Garcia Rawlins and Alexandra Valencia

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuela’s soaring prices and chronic shortages have left 65-year-old homemaker Alida Gonzalez struggling to put meals on the table.

She and her four family members in the Caracas slum of Petare now routinely skip one meal per day and increasingly rely on starches to make up for proteins that are too expensive or simply unavailable.

“With the money we used to spend on breakfast, lunch and dinner, we can now buy only breakfast, and not a very good one,” said Gonzalez in her home, which on a recent day contained just half a kilo of chicken (about a pound), four plantains, some cooking oil, a small packet of rice, and a mango.

The family did not know when they would be able to buy more.

Recession and a dysfunctional state-run economy are forcing many in the South American OPEC country of 30 million to reduce consumption and eat less-balanced meals.

In a recent survey by researchers from three major universities often critical of the government, 87 percent of the respondents said their income was insufficient to purchase food.

The study of nearly 1,500 families found rising percentages of carbohydrates in diets, and found that 12 percent of those interviewed do not eat three meals a day.

Government supporters have long pointed proudly to the improvement in eating under late socialist leader Hugo Chavez, who used oil income to subsidize food for the poor during his 14-year rule and won United Nations plaudits for it.

But President Nicolas Maduro, Chavez’s successor, has faced a collapse in the price of oil, which provides almost all foreign income. He further has blamed an opposition-led “economic war,” though critics deride that as an excuse.

Either way, Venezuelans are tired and cross.

A minimum wage is now only around 20 percent of the cost of feeding a family of five, according to one monitoring group. Lines snake around state supermarkets from before dawn.

“You have to get into these never ending lines – all day, five in the morning until three in the afternoon – to see if you get a couple of little bags of flour or some butter,” said taxi driver Jhonny Mendez, 58.

“It makes a person want to cry.”

Natalia Guerra, 45, lives in a small home in Petare with eight relatives, only one of whom has a significant salary.

She remembers buying milk for her own kids but now cannot find any for her grandchildren. “We’re a big family, and it’s constantly getting harder for us to eat,” she said.

(Writing by Brian Ellsworth; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne, Toni Reinhold)

Survivors in Ecuador clamor for food, water and medicine

People receive donations from volunteers as rescue efforts continue in Pedernales

By Ana Isabel Martinez and Julia Symmes Cobb

SAN JACINTO/PEDERNALES, Ecuador (Reuters) – Survivors of an earthquake that killed 570 people and shattered Ecuador’s coast clamored for food, water and medicine on Thursday as aid failed to reach some of the remotest parts of the quake zone.

President Rafael Correa’s socialist government, facing a mammoth rebuilding task at a time of slashed oil revenues in the OPEC nation, said there was no lack of aid – just problems with distribution that should be quickly resolved.

“We’re trying to survive. We need food,” said Galo Garcia, 65, a lawyer, waiting in line for water from a truck sent to the beachside village of San Jacinto. “There’s nothing in the shops. We’re eating the vegetables we grow.”

A crowd nearby chanted: “We want food.”

The government quickly moved supplies to the main towns and set up shelters for nearly 25,000 people in soccer stadiums and airports but the shattered state of the roads has impeded aid reaching remoter areas.

Many people left their villages seeking help while on roads near Pedernales, one of the worst-hit towns, children from rural areas held signs begging for food.

CHILDREN CRYING

Jose Rodriguez, 24, drove two hours from Calceta village to a food storage point outside Pedernales.

“It’s not reaching us,” he said, giving his address and phone number to a military office. “I came here to see if they could give me something but it’s impossible.”

A government official asked another supplicant, Jose Gregorio Basulor, 55, to stay calm. “I can be patient but not the children!” he shouted back. “They are crying.”

Correa has said Ecuador will temporarily increase some taxes, offer assets for sale and possibly issue bonds on the international market to fund reconstruction after Saturday’s 7.8 magnitude quake. He has estimated damage at $2 billion to $3 billion.

Lower oil revenue already had left the nation of 16 million people facing near-zero growth and lower investment.

“There are rumors there’s a shortage of water,” Correa said late on Wednesday, responding to complaints about the aid operation. “We have plenty of water. The problem is distribution,” he added, promising speedy solutions.

Ecuador’s worst earthquake in nearly seven decades injured 7,000 people and damaged close to 2,000 buildings. Scores of foreign aid workers and experts have arrived and 14,000 security personnel are keeping order, with only sporadic looting.

Correa said the death toll would have been lower had Ecuadoreans respected construction regulations beefed up after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti that killed more than 300,000 people.

(Additional reporting by Alexandra Valencia and Diego Ore in Quito; Writing by Andrew Cawthorne; Editing by Bill Trott)

Ecuador to hike taxes, sell assets to fund quake rebuilding

Aerial view of Pedernales, after an earthquake struck off Ecuador's Pacific coast

By Ana Isabel Martinez and Diego Oré

PEDERNALES/QUITO, Ecuador (Reuters) – Ecuador will temporarily increase some taxes, sell assets, and may issue new bonds on the international market to fund a multi-billion dollar reconstruction after a devastating 7.8 magnitude quake, a somber President Rafael Correa said on Wednesday.

The death toll from Ecuador’s weekend earthquake neared 600 and rescue missions ebbed as the traumatized Andean nation braced itself for long and costly rebuilding.

“It’s hard to imagine the magnitude of the tragedy. Every time we visit a place, there are more problems,” Correa said, fresh from touring the disaster zone.

The leftist leader estimated the disaster had inflicted $2 billion to $3 billion of damage and could knock 2 to 3 percentage points off growth, meaning the economy will almost certainly shrink this year. Lower oil revenue had already left the poor nation of 16 million people facing near-zero growth and lower investment.

In addition to $600 million in credit from multilateral lenders, Correa, an economist, announced a raft of measures to help repair homes, roads, and bridges along the devastated Pacific Coast.

“We’re looking at the possibility of issuing bonds on the international market,” he said on Wednesday afternoon, without providing details.

Ecuador had been saying before the quake that current high yields would make it too expensive to issue debt. Yields on its bonds are close to 11 percentage points higher than comparable U.S. Treasury debt, according to JPMorgan data, and creditors are likely to be wary after the quake.

Correa’s government in 2008 defaulted on debt with a similar yield, calling the value unfair. His government has since returned to Wall Street and Ecuador currently has some $3.5 billion worth of bonds in circulation.

In a nationally televised address later on Wednesday, Correa also announced the OPEC nation was poised to shed assets.

“The country has many assets thanks to investment over all these years and we will seek to sell some of them to overcome these difficult moments,” he said.

He also unveiled several short-term tax changes, including a 2-point increase in the Valued Added Tax for a year, as well as a “one-off 3 percent additional contribution on profits,” although the fine print was not immediately clear.

The VAT tax is currently 12 percent.

Additionally, a one-off tax of 0.9 percent will be imposed on people with wealth of over $1 million. Ecuadoreans will also be asked to contribute one day of salary, calculated on a sliding scale based on income.

‘FOOD, PLEASE’

Briefly pausing talk of reconstruction and hindering rescuers, another quake, of 6.2 magnitude, shook the coast before dawn on Wednesday, terrifying survivors.

“You can’t imagine what a fright it was. ‘Not again!’ I thought,” said Maria Quinones in Pedernales town, which bore the brunt of Saturday’s disaster.

That quake, the worst in decades, killed 570 people, injured 7,000 others, damaged close to 2,000 buildings, and forced over 24,000 survivors to seek refuge in shelters, according to government tallies.

Four days on, some isolated communities struggled without water, power or transport, as torn-up roads stymied deliveries. Along the coast, stadiums served as morgues and aid distribution centers.

“I’m waiting for medicines, diapers for my grandson, we’re lacking everything,” said Ruth Quiroz, 49, as she waited in an hour-long line in front of a makeshift pharmacy set up at the Pedernales stadium.

On a highway outside the town, some children sat holding placards saying: “Food, please.”

When a truck arrived to deliver water to the small town of San Jacinto, hungry residents surrounded the vehicle and hit it as they yelled: “We want food!”

Scores of foreign aid workers and experts have arrived in the aftermath of Saturday’s disaster and about 14,000 security personnel have kept order, with only sporadic looting reported. But rescuers were losing hope of finding anyone alive even as relatives of the missing begged them to keep looking.

Speaking from the highland capital, Quito, Correa said the death toll would likely rise further, although at a slower rate than in previous days. “May these tears fertilize the soil of the future,” he said.

(Additional reporting by Alexandra Valencia and Diego Ore in Quito, Brian Ellsworth in Caracas; Writing by Andrew Cawthorne and Alexandra Ulmer; Editing by Tom Brown, Peter Cooney and Michael Perry)

Venezuela Makes Fridays Holiday to Ease Energy Crisis

enezuela's President Nicolas Maduro (L) waves next to Diosdado Cabello, deputy of Venezuela's United Socialist Party (PSUV), during the broadcast of his weekly TV program "Hitting with the Sledge Hammer" in Caracas

By Alexandra Ulmer and Corina Pons

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro has decreed that all Fridays for the next two months will be holidays, in a bid to save energy in the blackout-hit OPEC country.

“We’ll have long weekends,” Maduro said in an hours-long appearance on state television on Wednesday night, announcing the measure as part of a 60-day plan to fight a power crunch.

A severe drought, coupled with what critics say is a lack of investment and maintenance in energy infrastructure, has hit the South American nation, which depends on hydropower for 60 percent of its electricity.

Venezuela’s opposition slammed the new four-day work week as reckless in the face of a bitter recession, shortages of foods and medicines, and triple-digit inflation.

The measure comes on the heels of Maduro decreeing a week-long break over Easter, ordering some shopping malls to generate their own power, and shortening daily working hours.

“For Maduro the best way to resolve this crisis is to reduce the country’s productivity,” said Caracas city councillor Jesus Armas. “Fridays are free bread and circus.”

Some Venezuelans took to social media to express their surprise. “You must be kidding???,” one Twitter user said. Many others wondered how the measure would impact schools, bureaucratic procedures and supermarkets.

It was not immediately clear how the non-working Fridays would affect the public and private sector.

The 60-day plan’s fine print will be announced on Thursday, said Maduro during the television program, which included music, dancing and giant pictures of late leader Hugo Chavez.

“I think we can overcome this situation without increasing fares or rationing,” added Maduro.

(Writing by Alexandra Ulmer; Editing by Tom Hogue)

FAO launches new appeal for Ethiopia, warns millions at risk of going hungry

A potent El Nino has decimated the agriculture sector in Ethiopia and left more than 10 million of the country’s residents at risk of going hungry, a United Nations agency warned Monday.

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) launched an urgent appeal for $13 million to help roughly 600,000 of the Ethiopian farmers who have been hit the hardest by the devastating crop and livestock losses brought on by one of the country’s worst droughts in history.

According to the FAO, the number of Ethiopians in need of humanitarian aid has tripled since January 2015, and about 10.2 million of them are currently food insecure. UNICEF warned last month that additional 6 million Ethiopians could need food assistance by the end of the year.

The FAO said the $13 million is needed by the end of the month to help ensure that farmers will be able to produce food during Ethiopia’s main growing season, when up to 85 percent of the nation’s total food supply is generated. Planting for an earlier rainy season was already delayed.

“We’re expecting that needs will be particularly high during the next few weeks,” Amadou Allahoury Diallo, the FAO’s country representative in Ethiopia, said in a statement. “So it’s critical that we’re able to respond quickly and robustly to reboot agriculture now before the drought further decimates the food security and livelihoods of millions.”

Ethiopia is one of several African nations that has been affected by an abnormally strong El Nino, a weather pattern known for producing extreme weather throughout the globe.

In a video released by the FAO on Monday, the organization’s Response Team Leader Rosanne Marchesich said some parts of Ethiopia have seen crop and livestock losses of 50 to 90 percent.

The eastern part of the country has witnessed “complete destruction,” she said.

In a news release, the FAO added “hundreds of thousands of livestock” in Ethiopia have died from a lack of water, feed shortages or poor grazing resources, and that die-off has fueled declines in milk and meat availability. Some farming families were forced to sell their final agricultural assets after last year’s losses, and others have been eaten planting seeds as food.

The organization said malnutrition is a growing concern.

The FAO added the $13 million will be used to supply feed and clean water to herding households, as well as safe water and seed support to farmers planning to grow crops.

UN says five starve in Madaya, dozens more at risk

GENEVA (Reuters) – Five people have starved to death in the last week in the Syrian town of Madaya, where a single biscuit sells for $15 and baby milk costs $313 per kilo, despite two emergency United Nations aid deliveries to the besieged town, a UN report said.

Local relief workers have reported 32 deaths of starvation in the past month, and last week two convoys of aid supplies were delivered to the 42,000 people living under a months-long blockade.

Dozens more people need immediate specialized medical care outside Madaya if they are to survive, but aid workers from the U.N. and Syrian Arab Red Crescent have managed to evacuate only 10 people, the report said.

“Since 11 January, despite the assistance provided, five people reportedly died of severe and acute malnutrition in Madaya,” said the U.N. humanitarian report, published late on Sunday.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Thursday Syria’s warring parties, particularly President Bashar al-Assad’s government, were committing “atrocious acts” and he condemned the use of starvation as a weapon of war in the nearly five-year-old conflict.

The United Nations says there are some 450,000 people trapped in around 15 sieges across Syria, including in areas controlled by the government, Islamic State militants and other insurgent groups.

The U.N. made seven requests in 2015 to bring an aid convoy to the town, and got permission to deliver aid for 20,000 people in October, the report said. After several more requests, the Syrian government allowed a life-saving aid delivery on Jan. 11 and another on Jan. 14.

About 50 people left the town on Jan. 11, the report said.

The U.N. has asked Syria to allow the evacuation of a number of others needing immediate care, it said.

Syrian government forces and their allies have surrounded Madaya and neighboring Bqine since July 2015 and imposed increasingly strict conditions on freedom of movement.

The U.N. said the humanitarian workers who entered the town last week heard that landmines had been laid since late September to stop people leaving, but many civilians continued to try to search for food on the outskirts, and some had lost limbs in landmine explosions.

The controls on movement also meant many children had been separated from their parents, leading to symptoms of trauma and behavioral disorders.

Chairs and desks in schools are being used as firewood and there have been unconfirmed reports of women being harassed at military checkpoints and of gender-based violence, the U.N. said.

(Reporting by Tom Miles; Editing by Dominic Evans)

Threat Posed to Food Supplies in Future According to World Bank

As many as 100 million people could slide into extreme poverty because of rising temperatures, which are caused by greenhouse gas emissions, the World Bank report said. The bank’s most recent estimate puts the number of people living in extreme poverty this year at 702 million, or 9.6% of the world’s population.

The report “Shock Waves: Managing the Impacts of Climate Change on Poverty”  shows that climate change is an acute threat to poorer people across the world, with the power to push more than 100 million people back into poverty over the next fifteen years.   It also reports that the poorest regions of the world such as the Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia will be hardest hit and could push more than 100 million people into extreme poverty by 2030 by disrupting agriculture and fueling the spread of malaria and other diseases.

Despite pledges to rein in emissions of carbon dioxide and other global warming gases, climate change isn’t likely to stop anytime soon. Carbon emissions are expected to rise for many years as China, India and other developing countries expand the use of fossil fuels to power their economies.

The report points a way out by stressing that the world needs to take targeting action to help people cope with climate shocks, issue warning systems and flood protection and introduce heat-resistant crops.  

This year, a series of high-profile meetings took place, creating a sense of gathering cooperation around the battle against global warming. A vital step was the adoption of the global goals, which set a 2030 deadline for the eradication of poverty in all its forms and sought to galvanise action to combat climate change and its impacts at the UN general assembly in September.