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2 Nigerian
Tribune Monday, 6 June, 2011
WORLD NEWS
Food prices'll d()uble by 2030 -Oxfam By Seyi Gesinde
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y 2030, the average cost of key crops could increase by between 120 per cent and 180 per cent, Oxfams has said . . Oxfam, a leading aid and develQpment charity organisation, is a interna. tional confederation of 14 organisations working in 98 countries worldwide to find- lasting solutions to poverty and injustice. The report recently released by Oxfam, indicated that, it is the acceleration of a trend which had already seen food prices double in the last 20 years that would result in the upsurge of food prices by 2030. According to the report, "hall of the rise to come will be caused by climate change," Oxfam predicts. To have a control over this new trend, Oxfam called on world leaders to improve regulation of food markets and invest in a global climate fund. "The food system must be overhauled if we are to overcome the increasingly pressing challenges of climate change, spiralling food prices and the scarcity of land, water and energy," Oxfam's chief executive, Barbara Stocking >;rud. Earlier before now, the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) stated in its reports that "world food prices have already more than doubled since 1.990, confirming Oxafam's latest forecast that "this trend will accelerate ov';r the -next 20 years." One of the reasons Oxfam gave for a p,,§sible
increase in food prices was its prediction that the world's population would reach 9 billion by 2050. According to Charity's research, the world's poorest people now spend up to 80 per cent of their incomes on food - with those in the Philippines spending proportionately four times more than those
in the United Kingdom(UK). "More people will be pushed into hunger as food prices climb," Oxfam said. In its reports, O xfam highlighted four "food insecurity hotspots," areas which are already struggling to feed their dtizens: oIn Guatemala,
865,000 people were said to be at risk of food insecurity because of a lack of state investment in smallholder farmers wi)o are highly dependent on imported food oIn India, the ' report indicated that people spend more than twice the proportion of their income on food than UK residents.
oAzerbaijan,the largest country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia, is another place where production of wheat was said to have fallen by 33 per cent last year "because of poor weather, forcing the country to import grains from Russia and Kazakhstan; food prices were 20 per cent higher in December 2010 than the
-A court found Boutros-Ghali guilty of squandering public funds and abuse of other funds he had access to. Photo: Reuters.
Egypt's ex-finance minister jailed for 30 years crinlinal court in Cairo, Egypt has sentenced Youssef Boutros-Ghali,. the former Egyptian finance minister, to 30 years in prison on corruption charges.
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Youssef BoutrosGhali, tried in absentia,.is ordered to serve 30 years in jail and pay over $5m. Boutros-Ghali was tried in absentia and sentenced for squandering
$6m in public funds and abuse of other funds that he had access to. The former minister, who isoutofthecountry,has-a1so been fined $llm (around 70m Egyptian pounds).
has Boutros-Ghali been on the run since February 11, the day Hosni Muba rak stepped down as president, and is on Interpol's wanted list. The court found him
VP takes over control in Yemen as people rejoice
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same month in 2009." oEast Africa is another region where eight million people were said to be faced wi th chronic food shortages at present because of drought, with women and children among the hardest hit Oxfam predicted tha t climate change would have the most serious
EMENI Vice Presi dent Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi has was undergoing surgery taken over responsibilities to remove shrapnel and as president of Yemen, that he had sustained following the fall of burns to his upper body_ former President Ali " Today, Yemen is Abdullah Saleh's govern- newborn," sang dozens of ment effective from Satur- youths on Sunday in day, government spokes- Sanaa's University man, Abdu Ganadi told Square, dubbed "Change CNN. Square," which had been However,tens of thou- the epicentre of anti-govsands of pro-democracy ernment protests that had protesters celebrated raged since February. what they described as Protesters also danced the fall of the Yemeni and slaughtered cows to government after Ali revel in the Saleh's deparAbdullah Saleh, the long- ture. serving president, left the The power transfer came as a source close to _ ,_~<' country for medical treatment in Saudi Arabia. h he Saudi government Medical solirces said ,I said that the long- time on Sun4ay the presiden\ . Yement ruler arrived ih ~
â&#x20AC;˘ Ex-president undergoes surgery in .saudi Arabia Riyadh around nticjnight Saturday, a day after being hurt in an attack on a mosque in his palace. Some Yemeni officials continue to insist that Saleh, who for months had resisted calls to step down, is still in Yemen, Yaser Yamani, Sanaa's deputy mayor, told Yemeni state TV Saturday night that "Saleh is sfill being treated in the military hospital in Sanaa ." Yet the Saudi source said that Saleh was immediately taken to a nearby hospital after his plane landed in Saudi Arabia_ A senior Yemeni g6V-
ernment official had told CNN that Saleh was fine after sustaining a slight h ead injury in Friday's attack, and he gave a nationally broadcast speecll later that night. But Saleh's medical condition is worse than originally thought, according to the Saudi source. In response to that attack, ,Yemeni security forces on Friday pounded the home of Sadeq al - Ahmar, the tribal lead er whose supporters are suspected of being behind the presidential palace offensive. The flurry of shelling
left 10 people dead and 35 others wounded, according to Fawzi AlJaradi, an official with Hamil al-Ahmar, a Hashed tribal confederation led by Sadeq alAhmar. The Saucli government source said Saturday that the Riyadh government has h elped to broker an open-ended cease-fire aimed at ending spiralling violence in Yemen. Demonstrators have demanded Saleh's ouster for months, and fighting between Yemeni government forces and Hashed tribesemen has spiked considerably in recent weeks.
guilty of having used 102 cars waiting in customs including six luxury ca rs for personal use - in an action which "grea tly harmed the financial interests" of their owners. He was a lso found guilty of having used the finance ministry 's resources for his personal electoral campaign, printing materials at the ex pense of the ministry. Boutros-GhaJi is one of a string of Mubarak-era ministers to face justice as part of a sweeping investigation into fraud by Egypt's new military rulers. Mubarak is to face trial on August 3, along with his t wo sons Alaa and Gamal, accused of ordering the shooting of antigovernment protesters during the January-February uprising and for fraud. The once feared interior minister, Habib al-Adly, has been sentenced to 12 years for corruption and is facing a second trial over , the killing of pro,testers.