Tag Archives: Food

Sudan to end fuel, food subsidies by 2019: minister

street vendor in Sudan

By Khalid Abdelaziz

KHARTOUM (Reuters) – Sudan plans to end all subsidies on food and fuel by 2019 and forecasts the lifting of U.S. sanctions will earn its hard currency-starved economy $4 billion per year in remittances, Minister of State for Finance Magdi Hassan Yasin said on Monday.

In the final days of Barack Obama’s presidency, Washington announced plans to lift a 20-year-old trade embargo, unfreeze assets and remove financial sanctions in response to Khartoum’s cooperation in fighting Islamic State and other groups.

The sanctions relief will come in six months if Sudan takes further steps to improve its human rights record and takes steps to resolve military conflicts, including in Darfur.

Even so, Sudanese officials are already looking beyond the sanctions regime.

“The lifting of American sanctions is a turning point for the Sudanese economy,” Yasin, a junior minister, said in an interview.

The path may not be smooth. On Saturday, Sudan’s foreign ministry called President Donald Trump’s temporary travel ban on citizens from seven countries, including Sudan, “very unfortunate”.

If there is no extension, the three-month restriction on Sudanese citizens entering the United States would be over by the time the trade embargo and financial sanctions are removed.

Even so, it is unclear if the tougher immigration rules promised by Trump might impact on trade relations between the two countries.

END OF SUBSIDIES

Sudan’s economy has struggled since South Sudan seceded in 2011, taking with it three-quarters of the country’s oil output and much of Khartoum’s foreign currency and government revenue.

Sudan in November cut fuel and electricity subsidies and announced import restrictions to save scarce foreign currency. Yasin said the government targets scrapping these subsidies entirely by 2019.

“Distortions will be removed from the economy with the total cancellation of consumption subsidies,” Yasin said. “That includes for fuel, electricity, and imported wheat.”

Yasin said the government was considering legislation allowing foreign companies to invest in electricity infrastructure and production for the first time. Huge swathes of rural Sudan have never been connected to the national grid.

“Sudan only produces 34 percent of its electricity needs, so the door will be open for investment in this field, especially after U.S. sanctions are lifted,” he said.

Khartoum has already said it will review its monetary and exchange rate policies once the U.S. sanctions are lifted to lure new foreign investment.

The potential for increased trade and investment flows is already reflecting in the real economy, with the Sudanese pound strengthening to 16 per dollar from 19 before the sanctions announcement.

The pound trades at 6.8 per dollar in the official banking system. The minister said a stronger pound would tame inflation, which hit an annual rate of 30.47 percent in December.

“We expect inflation to start declining beginning this July and for the value of the pound to continue rising with the inflow of remittances from Sudanese abroad and foreign investments,” said Yasin.

(Writing by Eric Knecht; Editing by Ahmed Aboulenein and Richard Lough)

WFP, short of funds, halves food rations to displaced Iraqis

Displaced Iraqis flee their homes while battles go on with Islamic State

By Ayat Basma

ERBIL, Iraq (Reuters) – The World Food Programme said on Friday it had halved the food rations distributed to 1.4 million Iraqis displaced in the war against Islamic State because of delays in payments of funds from donor states.

“This year somehow we are receiving commitments from donors a little bit late, we are talking with donors but we don’t have enough money as of yet,” said Inger Marie Vennize, spokeswoman for the U.N. agency.

“We have had to reduce (the rations) as of this month.”

The WFP is talking to the United States – its biggest donor – Germany, Japan and others to secure funds to restore full rations, she added.

“The 50 percent cuts in monthly rations affect over 1.4 million people across Iraq,” Vennize said.

The impact is already being felt in camps east of Mosul, the northern city controlled in part by Islamic State. About 160,000 people have been displaced since the military campaign to recapture Mosul from the Islamists was launched in October.

“They gave us a good amount of food in the beginning, but now they have reduced it,” said Omar Shukri Mahmoud at the Hassan Sham camp.

“They are giving an entire family the food supply of one person … And there is no work at all … we want to go back home,” he added.

“We are a big family and this ration is not going to be enough,” said 39-year-old Safa Shaker, who has a family of 11.

“We escaped from Daesh (Islamic State) in order to have a chance to live and now we came here and they have cut the aid. How are we supposed to live?” she said as she cooked for the family.

About 3 million people have been displaced from their homes in Iraq since 2014, when Islamic State took over large areas of the country and of neighboring Syria.

(With assistance by Girish Gupta; Writing by Saif Hameed; Editing by Andrew Roche)

U.N. to need $8 billion this year to help Syrians at home and abroad

By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA (Reuters) – The United Nations said on Tuesday it will need a total of $8 billion this year to provide life-saving assistance to millions of Syrians inside their shattered homeland and to refugees and their host communities in neighboring countries.

The first part, a $4.63 billion appeal for 5 million Syrian refugees – 70 percent of whom are women and children – was launched at a Helsinki conference. Funds will be used to provide food, rent, education and health care.

A separate appeal for an estimated $3.4 billion to fund its humanitarian operation to help 13.5 million people inside Syria after nearly six years of war, is being finalised.

“The crisis in Syria remains one of most complex, volatile and violent in the world,” U.N. humanitarian chief Stephen O’Brien told a news conference.

Attempts to end the conflict in Syria have so far failed. After two-day talks, Iran, Russia and Turkey earlier announced a trilateral mechanism to observe and ensure full compliance with a ceasefire.

“Of course we fear that it will get worse,” O’Brien said. “And even if peace was to take place from tonight, the humanitarian needs within Syria would continue for a good time to come.”

Five countries – Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq, Jordan and Egypt – host nearly 5 million Syrian refugees, a “staggering number”, with few in camps, U.N. refugee chief Filippo Grandi said.

“Even if Syrians have stopped arriving in Europe in any significant numbers, I hope that everybody realizes that the Syria refugee crisis has not gone away and continues to affect millions in host communities and continues to be a tragic situation,” he said.

It was too early to say whether any solution would lead to further displacement or people returning to their homes.

“There is uncertainty surrounding the political process, we all hope that it will move in the right direction, but we can’t tell. We’ve had disappointments in the past,” Grandi said.

Providing livelihoods and restoring basic utilities are a priority in Syria, said Helen Clark, administrator of the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP).

“Even were there to be a political settlement tomorrow, we would still be here seeking support for humanitarian relief for a country that has been brought to its knees, with 85 percent living in poverty, 50 percent in unemployment and with the severe economic and social impacts on the neighborhood.”

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Tom Miles and Raissa Kasolowsky)

Syrian ceasefire largely holding, aid not going in – UN

UN medator for Syria

GENEVA (Reuters) – The ceasefire in the Syria war is holding for the most part but humanitarian aid is still not getting through to besieged areas where food is running out, the U.N. envoy said on Thursday.

Envoy Staffan de Mistura voiced concern that 23 buses and Syrian drivers used in recent evacuations were being stopped from leaving the villages of Foua and Kefraya in Idlib province by armed groups. He called for them to be allowed to leave.

“These are not U.N. officials, these are Syrian buses with Syrian drivers. And that is not to happen because this complicates then tit-for-tat approaches,” de Mistura told reporters in Geneva after the weekly meeting of the humanitarian task force.

The ceasefire brokered by Russia and Turkey last month was largely holding, he said But fighting was still going on in two villages in the Wadi Barada valley, the site of water pumping facilities serving more than 5 million people in Damascus. Five other villages in the area had reached an agreement with the government, he said.

Water engineers are ready to repair the damaged facility, security permitting, he said, although two attempts to do so had been blocked by armed groups.

“Military activities in that area means also the potential of further damaging water pumps and water supplies,” he said.

De Mistura said he understood that the United Nations would be invited for talks in the Kazakh capital of Astana on Jan. 23, being organised by Russia and Turkey.

That meeting was aimed at deepening the cessation of hostilities and forming “some type of political broad lines,” which could contribute to Geneva peace talks he has convened around Feb. 8, de Mistura said. But there had been no formal invitations or confirmed dates for Astana.

(Reporting by Tom Miles and Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

Colombia reaches deal with truckers to lift 45-day strike

Cyclists near burning tires

BOGOTA (Reuters) – Colombia’s government and truckers reached a deal on Friday to lift a strike that has stretched 45 days, snarling coffee exports and pushing inflation higher as foodstuff was blocked from moving around the nation.

The two sides reached agreement on cargo prices and the gradual removal of old vehicles, ending the longest and most costly strike in Colombian history, but failed to agree on toll road and fuel costs.

“The immobilization of cargo transport has been lifted,” Transport Minister Jorge Eduardo Rojas told reporters.

One person was killed during clashes, and the governor of Boyaca province was injured in a highway accident that authorities blamed on the protesters.

Trucks blocking highways were impounded, and the government said drivers or truck owners participating in violent protests would have their licenses revoked and face fines.

The strike, which began in early June, caused sharp rises in food prices, clogged ports and hit exports of the country’s high-quality arabica coffee.

Coffee growers are already struggling because of a drought caused by the El Nino weather phenomenon, and are bracing for coming heavy rains, but the strike may send exports plunging by half in July, the coffee federation told Reuters recently.

High food prices have helped push 12-month inflation to 8.60 percent through June, more than double the central bank’s 2 percent to 4 percent target range.

(Reporting by Helen Murphy and Luis Jaime Acosta; Additional reporting by Nelson Bocanegra; Editing by Julia Symmes Cobb and Bernadette Baum)

U.S. GMO food labeling bill passes Senate

A customer picks up produce near a sign supporting a ballot initiative in Washington state that would require labelling of foods containing genetically modified crops at the Central Co-op in Seattle, Washington October 29, 2013. REUTERS/Jason Redmond

By Chris Prentice

(Reuters) – The U.S. Senate on Thursday approved legislation that would for the first time require food to carry labels listing genetically-modified ingredients, which labeling supporters say could create loopholes for some U.S. crops.

The Senate voted 63-30 for the bill that would display GMO contents with words, pictures or a bar code that can be scanned with smartphones. The U.S. Agriculture Department (USDA) would decide which ingredients would be considered genetically modified.

The measure now goes to the House of Representatives, where it is expected to pass.

Drawing praise from farmers, the bill sponsored by Republican Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas and Democrat Senator Debbie Stabenow of Michigan is the latest attempt to introduce a national standard that would override state laws, including Vermont’s that some say is more stringent, and comes amid growing calls from consumers for greater transparency.

“This bipartisan bill ensures that consumers and families throughout the United States will have access, for the first time ever, to information about their food through a mandatory, nationwide label for food products with GMOs,” Stabenow said in a statement.

A nationwide standard is favored by the food industry, which says state-by-state differences could inflate costs for labeling and distribution. But mandatory GMO labeling of any kind would still be seen as a loss for Big Food, which has spent millions lobbying against it.

Farmers lobbied against the Vermont law, worrying that labeling stigmatizes GMO crops and could hurt demand for food containing those ingredients, but have applauded this law.

Critics like Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont, say the bill’s vague language and allowance for electronic labels for scanning could limit its scope and create confusion.

“When parents go to the store and purchase food, they have the right to know what is in the food their kids are going to be eating,” Sanders said on the floor of the Senate ahead of the vote.

He said at a news conference this week that major food manufacturers have already begun labeling products with GMO ingredients to meet the new law in his home state.

Another opponent of the bill, Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon, said it would institute weak federal requirements making it virtually impossible for consumers to access information about GMOs.

LOOPHOLES

Food ingredients like beet sugar and soybean oil, which can be derived from genetically-engineered crops but contain next to no genetic material by the time they are processed, may not fall under the law’s definition of a bioengineered food, critics say.

GMO corn may also be excluded thanks to ambiguous language, some said.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) raised concerns about the involvement of the USDA in a list of worries sent in a June 27 memo to the Senate Agriculture Committee.

In a letter to Stabenow last week, the USDA’s general counsel tried to quell those worries, saying it would include commercially-grown GMO corn, soybeans, sugar and canola crops.

The vast majority of corn, soybeans and sugar crops in the United States are produced from genetically-engineered seeds. The domestic sugar market has been strained by rising demand for non-GMO ingredients like cane sugar.

The United States is the world’s largest market for foods made with genetically altered ingredients. Many popular processed foods are made with soybeans, corn and other biotech crops whose genetic traits have been manipulated, often to make them resistant to insects and pesticides.

“It’s fair to say that it’s not the ideal bill, but it is certainly the bill that can pass, which is the most important right now,” said American Soybean Association’s (ASA) director of policy communications Patrick Delaney.

The association was part of the Coalition for Safe and Affordable Food, which lobbied for what labeling supporters termed the Deny Americans the Right to Know, or DARK Act, that would have made labeling voluntary. It was blocked by the Senate in March.

(Reporting by Chris Prentice in New York; Additional reporting by Karl Plume in Chicago, Lisa Baertlein in Los Angeles and Kouichi Shirayanagi and Eric Beech in Washington; Editing by Marguerita Choy and Ed Davies)

U.N. convoys bring food to besieged Syrian towns of Daraya, Douma

UN unloading food in Syria

By Stephanie Nebehay and John Davison

GENEVA/BEIRUT (Reuters) – International aid convoys have reached two Syrian rebel-held towns near Damascus, marking the first delivery of food supplies to Daraya since 2012, after the government granted permission for the trips, the United Nations said on Friday.

Trucks from the United Nations and Syrian Arab Red Crescent brought a month’s supply of food for 2,400 people to Daraya, Jens Laerke, spokesman of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said.

A separate inter-agency convoy entered Douma in rebel-held Eastern Ghouta near Damascus later on Friday, he said.

Any sense of relief inside Daraya was short-lived, however, because the food supplies would not last a month and the U.N. had underestimated the number of people living there at present, the local council and a monitoring group reported.

“They managed to get through all the checkpoints to get in there, deliver overnight, stock what needed to be stocked and provide food for the first time in years to people inside Daraya,” Laerke told a news briefing.

Malnutrition has been reported in Daraya, which is only 12 km (7 miles) from Damascus, where a first convoy with non-food supplies was allowed to enter on June 1.

U.N. mediator Staffan de Mistura, speaking to reporters on Thursday, said President Bashar al-Assad’s government had approved U.N. land convoys to 15 of 17 government-besieged areas in June. Air drops remain an option if the convoys did not move, he said.

Hussam Aala, Syria’s ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva, told Reuters on Friday: “Discussions are still going on about one pending location. The rest were all approved.”

Access to al Waer in Homs province was still under discussion, he said.

Health and hygiene items for Daraya’s estimated population of 4,000 were also delivered overnight and will be distributed by Red Crescent workers, Laerke said.

“However of course we call for unconditional, unimpeded and sustained access to all people in need,” he said, noting that 4.6 million people are trapped in besieged and hard-to-reach areas.

Some 1.9 tonnes of medicines for chronic diseases such as hypertension and diabetes as well as antibiotics, from the World Health Organization were on that convoy, spokesman Tarik Jasarevic said.

‘SUPPLIES INSUFFICIENT’

However, the government did not approve delivery of three burns kits that would have been enough to treat about 30 people with dressings and pain killers, rejecting them from the approved list, Jasarevic said.

There was also anger and frustration at the insufficient amount of food aid delivered, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported. The British-based group tracks the war using sources on the ground.

It cited the Daraya local council as saying the supplies brought in would not last two weeks. The council says the population of Daraya is over 8,000, – more than double the U.N. estimates.

Council spokesman Hossam Ayyash said it was unclear how the aid, which would cater for only a quarter of the besieged population, would be distributed.

“Of course we are grateful to the team that brought in the supplies, but unfortunately they are not sufficient. We don’t know what decision will be taken (on how to distribute the aid), but it won’t be able to be shared out among everyone who’s here,” Ayyash said.

On Friday government helicopters stepped up their barrel bombing of Daraya, the Observatory and local council said.

(Editing by Robin Pomeroy and Hugh Lawson)

U.S. Convoy brings food to besieged Syrian town

A man rides a bicycle past a damaged building in Daraya, near Damascus

By Stephanie Nebehay and John Davison

GENEVA/BEIRUT (Reuters) – An international aid convoy reached the Syrian rebel-held town of Daraya overnight to deliver food supplies for the first time since 2012, when the town came under siege by government forces, the United Nations said on Friday.

Trucks from the United Nations and Syrian Arab Red Crescent brought a month’s supply of food for 2,400 people, Jens Laerke, spokesman of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said.

Any sense of relief inside Daraya was short-lived, however, because the food supplies would not last a month and the U.N. had underestimated the number of people living there at present, the local council and a monitoring group reported.

The operation began late on Thursday and lasted several hours, Laerke said.

“They managed to get through all the checkpoints to get in there, deliver overnight, stock what needed to be stocked and provide food for the first time in years to people inside Daraya,” he told a news briefing.

Malnutrition has been reported in the rebel-held town, which is only 12 km (7 miles) from Damascus, where a first convoy with non-food supplies was allowed to enter on June 1.

U.N. mediator Staffan de Mistura, speaking to reporters on Thursday, said President Bashar al-Assad’s government had approved U.N. land convoys to 15 of 17 government-besieged areas in June. Air drops remain an option if the convoys did not move, he said.

As well as wheat flour and other foodstuffs, health and hygiene items for Daraya’s estimated population of 4,000 were delivered overnight and will be distributed by Red Crescent workers, Laerke said.

“However of course we call for unconditional, unimpeded and sustained access to all people in need, wherever they are, but in particular besieged and hard-to-reach areas where we have still about 4.6 million people living under these conditions in Syria,” he added.

Some 1.9 tonnes of medicines for chronic diseases such as hypertension and diabetes as well as antibiotics and vitamins, from the World Health Organization were on the convoy, spokesman Tarik Jasarevic said.

‘SUPPLIES INSUFFICIENT’

However, the government did not approve delivery of three burns kits that would have been enough to treat about 30 people with dressings and pain killers, rejecting them from the approved list, Jasarevic said.

There was also anger and frustration at the insufficient amount of food aid delivered, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported. The British-based group tracks the war using sources on the ground.

It cited the Daraya local council as saying the supplies brought in would not last two weeks. The council says the population of Daraya is over 8,000, – more than double the U.N. estimates.

Council spokesman Hossam Ayyash said it was unclear how the aid, which would cater for only a quarter of the besieged population, would be distributed.

“Of course we are grateful to the team that brought in the supplies, but unfortunately they are not sufficient. We don’t know what decision will be taken (on how to distribute the aid), but it won’t be able to be shared out among everyone who’s here,” Ayyash said.

On Friday government helicopters stepped up their barrel bombing of Daraya, the Observatory and local council said. Daraya was reported to have been shelled last month after an aid convoy was turned away despite an agreement for it to enter.

(Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

FDA too slow to order food recalls, U.S. watchdog finds

By Julie Steenhuysen

CHICAGO (Reuters) – The Food and Drug Administration is too slow to order companies to recall tainted foods, leaving people at risk of illness and death, a government watchdog said in a review of the agency’s food safety program.

The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General reviewed 30 recalls that occurred between 2012 and 2015, including two in which companies did not recall all affected items until 165 days and 81 days after the FDA became aware of tainted foods. The watchdog issued its report on Wednesday.

“FDA does not have adequate policies and procedures to ensure that firms take prompt and effective action in initiating voluntary food recalls,” the report said. “As a result, consumers remained at risk of illness or death for several weeks after FDA was aware of a potentially hazardous food in the supply chain.”

The watchdog urged the FDA to address the problem immediately.

In a blog post, FDA food safety officials Stephen Ostroff and Howard Sklamberg called the report’s findings “unacceptable” and said the agency is “totally committed” to food safety.

Representative Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut in a statement said it was “mind-boggling” that the FDA does not have policies or procedures to ensure swift voluntary food recalls.

DeLauro, who oversees drug and food safety in her position on the House of Representatives subcommittee responsible for the FDA, pointed to a salmonella outbreak last year in cucumbers, which sickened nearly 900 people, hospitalized 191 and killed six. The outbreak began in July, but it took until September before producers started recalling product.

“Delays like this one – and others found in the report – are completely unacceptable and leave American consumers at risk for illness and death,” DeLauro said.

Ostroff and Sklamberg said the FDA has a plan underway to strengthen compliance and enforcement policies, including both voluntary and mandatory recalls.

But they said recalls must be based on scientific evidence borne out of an outbreak investigation. And while timeframes for recalls need to be set, “they must be done on an individual basis rather than by setting arbitrary deadlines.”

To speed the FDA’s response, Ostroff and Sklamberg said the agency has established a team of experts from different scientific disciplines to oversee outbreak investigations. They also cited FDA’s adoption in 2014 of the use of whole genome sequencing, a more precise technology for determining the genetic fingerprint of foodborne pathogens.

In addition, provisions in the 2011 Food Safety Modernization Act that require companies to minimize food safety risks, and require companies to have a recall plan, will begin to take effect this fall.

(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen; Editing by Leslie Adler)

U.N. sounds alarm about Falluja children, food supply

A displaced Iraqi child, who fled from Islamic State violence from Saqlawiyah, near Falluja, is seen in the town of Khalidiya, north of Baghdad

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Thousands of children are facing extreme violence in Falluja, which the Iraqi army is trying to retake from Islamic State, and food stocks in the besieged city are dwindling, the United Nations warned on Wednesday.

At least 20,000 children remain inside the Islamic State’s stronghold near Baghdad and face the risk of forced recruitment into fighting and separation from their families, the United Nations’ children’s agency UNICEF said.

The World Food Program, in a separate statement, said the humanitarian situation was worsening as family food stocks were running down, pushing up prices to a level few can afford.

“We are concerned over the protection of children in the face of extreme violence,” UNICEF Representative in Iraq Peter Hawkins said in a statement.

“Children face the risk of forced recruitment into the fighting” inside the besieged city, and “separation from their families” if they manage to leave, he added.

Backed by Shi’ite militias and air strikes from the U.S.-led coalition, the Iraqi armed forces launched an offensive on May 23 to recapture the city, 50 kms (32 miles) west of Baghdad. [nL8N18S1HF]

The assault on Falluja, the first Iraqi city to fall under control of the ultra-hardline Sunni militants in January 2014, is expected to be one of the biggest battles fought against Islamic State.

About 50,000 civilians remain there, according to the U.N.

Iraqi security forces operating in Falluja systematically separate men and boys over 12 from their families to check possible links with Islamic State.

“UNICEF calls on all parties to protect children inside Falluja, provide safe passage to those wishing to leave the city and grant safe and secure environment to civilians who fled Falluja,” Hawkins said.

The WFP statement said the city was inaccessible for assistance and market distribution systems remained offline.

“The only food available does not come from the markets, but from the stocks that some families still have in their homes,” it added.

(Reporting by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Michael Perry and Richard Balmforth)