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Severe Hunger Looms For Zimbabwe
BBC ^ | 1-26-2007

Posted on 01/26/2007 6:50:37 AM PST by blam

Severe hunger looms for Zimbabwe

Many Zimbabweans look set to go hungry

Zimbabwe is facing a food deficit of hundreds of thousands of tonnes - a third of its requirements - an international monitoring agency warns. The Famine Early Warning System says the cereal balance sheet projects a shortfall in maize - the staple food - of some 850,000 tonnes.

By December only 152,600 tonnes had been delivered, meaning widespread hunger looks set to continue.

The monitors say Zimbabwe's lack of foreign currency is a key problem.

Crisis

The Zimbabwean government has refused to allow outside agencies to carry out crop assessments but the Famine Early Warning System used satellite images.

The government plans to import 565,000 tonnes of cereal - 60% of the projected deficit.

"It remains doubtful that Zimbabwe will be able to meet their import goals," the Famine Early Warning System said.

The monitors said a slight increase in national maize production, higher prices for South African maize and Zimbabwe's shortage of foreign currency due to its economic crisis were the leading causes of the lower levels of imports.

Zimbabwe has been gripped by an economic crisis for more than six years and has one of the world's lowest rates of life expectancy and the highest inflation rate.

Donors blame government mismanagement and the seizure of white-owned farms for Zimbabwe's economic problems.

President Robert Mugabe instead blames an international plot to remove him from power.


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: famine; hunger; mugabe; zimbabwe
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1 posted on 01/26/2007 6:50:39 AM PST by blam
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To: Clive

Zim Ping.


2 posted on 01/26/2007 6:51:00 AM PST by blam
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To: blam

Hunger's next plan is to "attack" Venezuela.


3 posted on 01/26/2007 6:53:19 AM PST by kipita (Conservatives: Freedom and Responsibility------Liberals: Freedom from Responsibility)
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To: blam
Socialism and racial/ethnic cleansing lead to famine...who could have predicted it?
4 posted on 01/26/2007 6:53:48 AM PST by 2banana (My common ground with terrorists - they want to die for islam and we want to kill them)
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To: blam

Socialism fails every time it's tried.

Maybe it's good to see another painful reminder of that.


5 posted on 01/26/2007 6:55:09 AM PST by Dog Gone
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To: blam

Famine in 2007. Good lord, how bad can a country be run to have a famine in this day and age. Didn't the left cheer this guy when he began re-distributing land to his cronies?


6 posted on 01/26/2007 6:56:52 AM PST by Tulane
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To: blam

They took all the farms from the "whites" those farms still exist just under new management.

How come those farms fed everyone before and now they don't.


7 posted on 01/26/2007 6:57:30 AM PST by edcoil (Reality doesn't say much - doesn't need too)
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To: blam

The inevitable result of communism. All are equally poor and miserable.
Their regime seized farms from their owners, like a good communist, and not the farms are not producing anything.
Their regime is the cause of the famine.


8 posted on 01/26/2007 6:57:59 AM PST by Leftism is Mentally Deranged
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To: Leftism is Mentally Deranged

Rhodesia once was the bread basket of Africa.


9 posted on 01/26/2007 7:03:45 AM PST by Eric in the Ozarks (BTUs are my Beat.)
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To: blam

Time to start eating your leaders.........first things first.


10 posted on 01/26/2007 7:19:24 AM PST by newcthem (George Bush's legacy.....a war with an enemy that can't be named and the "Religion of Peace")
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To: blam; Cincinatus' Wife; sarcasm; happygrl; Byron_the_Aussie; robnoel; GeronL; ZOOKER; Bonaparte; ...

-


11 posted on 01/26/2007 7:49:39 AM PST by Clive
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To: newcthem

The leader knows he only needs about 1/8 the people he has now, this is the easiest way to get there.


12 posted on 01/26/2007 7:55:40 AM PST by Sundog (What are we going to do tomorrow, Brain?)
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To: blam

Hey that reminds me of an old Soviet joke:

Back in the 1970s, the commissar decides to visit the collective farm to see how things are going. "Comrade, how is the potato crop this year?" he asks the farmer.

The farmer thinks for a second and says "Comrade, the potato crop is so good this year that if you pile all the potatoes on top of each other, the pile would reach all the way to the gates of Heaven."

The commissar is aghast. "Comrade, this is the Soviet Union! We are atheists! There is no Heaven!"

"Exactly." said the farmer. "There are no potatoes either."


13 posted on 01/26/2007 8:16:59 AM PST by Our man in washington (The Democratic party is an alliance of narcissists and parasites.)
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To: blam
"The monitors say Zimbabwe's lack of foreign currency is a key problem"

Socialists covering for Socialists.

"Donors blame government mismanagement and the seizure of white-owned farms for Zimbabwe's economic problems."

The reality.

"President Robert Mugabe instead blames an international plot to remove him from power."

The Delusion, the Paranoia, and the Lie.
Someone needs to make it the reality.
14 posted on 01/26/2007 12:18:09 PM PST by Pete from Shawnee Mission
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To: Sundog
The leader knows he only needs about 1/8 the people he has now, this is the easiest way to get there.

And he has made statments to this effect.

Zimbabwe's leadership takes lessons from the North Korean regime, which also allowed starvation to decimate its population in the 1990s.

The North Koreans were an early supporter of Mugabe's regime; there were State visits, "technological help", military training of the re-formed Zimbabwee Army (which so failed that the British, the hated "colonzers", were asked to come in and complete the job).Mugabe belongs in the next tier down from the Axis of Evil, only because he does not threaten anyone but his own population.

He is truly an Evil Man.

15 posted on 01/26/2007 3:38:57 PM PST by happygrl
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To: blam

Alas, CNN will lament six killed in Somalia and ignore the hundreds of thousands who might die in Zim...


16 posted on 01/26/2007 3:43:00 PM PST by LadyDoc (liberals only love politically correct poor people)
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To: Clive

I've been offline, moving the household.
Any thing from Cathy B. lately?


17 posted on 01/26/2007 3:46:25 PM PST by tet68 ( " We would not die in that man's company, that fears his fellowship to die with us...." Henry V.)
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To: edcoil
How come those farms fed everyone before and now they don't.

The land is still there, but that's only a small part of what's needed.

All the seed has already been eaten up. The farms have been stripped of anything of value - tractors, harvesters, irrigation and processing machinery - even the wiring and plumbing from the farm houses.

Of course, all the live stock is gone, along with any wild game. Even the trees are gone, cut up for firewood.

Most important, the owners are gone. They were the only ones who cared enough to put in the hard work and make something out of their farms. The government owns them now, despite what it says about returning it to its ancestral owners. Mugabe took it away from the white owners, then took it away from the squatters who thought they were the new owners. If someone was stupid enough to try and plant and cultivate it, Mugabe would show up at harvest and take that away too.

In essence, Mugabe or his cronies own them now, what's left of them. Why don't you ask him why Zimbabwe can't feed itself?

18 posted on 01/26/2007 4:00:10 PM PST by ZOOKER ( How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat?)
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To: edcoil
They took all the farms from the "whites" those farms still exist just under new management.

How come those farms fed everyone before and now they don't.

For the same reason that possession of a musical instrument does not convey make the possessor a virtuoso. The land in competent hands not only fed the nation, it generated a surplus to feed neighboring countries and created positive cash flow due to the trade. The socialists complained that the white farmers controlled all of the best land. The poor blacks couldn't compete with what remained. The blatant falsehood of that claim is now obvious.

19 posted on 01/26/2007 4:36:10 PM PST by Myrddin
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To: blam

What, no "We are the World" benefits from Hollywood?


20 posted on 01/26/2007 4:38:34 PM PST by Extremely Extreme Extremist (Forgot your tagline? Click here to have it resent!)
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