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Saddam, 7 Co-Defendants on Hunger Strike Jun 21 1:29 PM US/Eastern Email this story By JAMAL HALABY Associated Press Writer AMMAN, Jordan Saddam Hussein and his seven co-defendants went on a hunger strike Wednesday to protest the killing of an attorney on the defense team, Saddam's chief lawyer said. Khalil al-Dulaimi told The Associated Press, "President Saddam and other members of his leadership went on a hunger strike today to protest the killing of Khamis al-Obeidi." "They pledged not to end the strike until international protection is provided to the defense team," said al-Dulaimi, who was visiting Jordan.

Happiness lies in misery as UN war on hunger fails to progress By David Blair in Dar-es-Salaam (Filed: 17/05/2006) Wrapped in the tatty sheets of a hospital bed, Happiness Kitomari raised her emaciated arms and clasped her distraught mother with tiny fingers. She stared with bewildered eyes at the tangled drip-feed keeping her alive. Emergency treatment will probably save this malnourished young girl from the slums of Tanzania's capital, Dar-es-Salaam. But her mother, Anna, must struggle every day to feed her children. "Life is very hard and sometimes I want to die," said Mrs Kitomari. "It is better to die...

Two million Darfur refugees face food ration cut as aid cash runs out By David Blair, Africa Correspondent (Filed: 29/04/2006) The suffering of at least two million refugees in Darfur worsened still further yesterday when the United Nations said their food rations will be halved. The UN's World Food Programme explained that a 50 per cent cut was necessary because donors had failed to provide enough money. Over two million refugees in Darfur depend on the WFP "This is one of the hardest decisions I have ever made," said James Morris, director of the WFP. "Haven't the people of Darfur...

Zimbabwe's white farmers say they have been invited to apply for land - in an apparent U-turn by the government which has seized their land.

For the information of all the anxious: There is no hunger in the territories. No baby has died of malnutrition; no child is walking around with a swollen belly. There is no lack of flour, and from Rafah to Jenin rice is available. Let the tongue-cluckers relax: The talk about a "humanitarian disaster" is exaggerated. The international relief and aid organizations are trying in despair to cry "wolf," to alert the Israelis and the world and enlist them in the cause to save the Palestinian people, knowing that only exaggerated talk might move anyone. They might be right, but their...

(SNIP) Graham Hatty has already been up for hours. Bouncing in his Indian-made jeep down a track that borders his property, Hatty points out a pair of kestrels gliding on a breeze, and a flock of Abyssinian rollers sweeping across the brightening sky. "It's a bird watcher's paradise," says the 66-year-old Zimbabwean farmer. But Hatty has more on his mind than nature viewing. He pulls alongside a dozen Nigerian laborers packing burlap sacks with maize. The farmer runs his fingers through the yellow kernels, and draws back in revulsion: the bag is infested with weevils, gnatlike bugs that can quickly...

Zimbabwe has only two weeks of wheat supply left, while citizens are faced with soaring bread prices, Zimbabwe's main milling organisation has said. The cost of bread has risen by 30%, pushing Zimbabwe's inflation rate to more than 600%. Zimbabwe has been in economic decline since President Robert Mugabe began seizing white-owned farms in 2000. The government is reported to have put its security forces on alert in case the discontent leads to protests. David Govere, deputy chairman of the Millers Association, told AFP news agency the scarcity of wheat has meant a reduction in supplies to bakeries. It's a...

U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Thursday North Korean IQs are feared to be falling due to prolonged malnutrition. "The people have had so little food over much of their lives," Rumsfeld said at a National Press Club luncheon in raising North Korea as an example as to why he said political and economic freedom is needed. "There's a concern that their IQs are going down because of malnutrition and insufficient diet," Rumsfeld said. "People in the North Korean military...are 4 foot 10 inches (145 centimeters), these are men, and less than 100 pounds (45 kilograms)." "That's a tragedy,"...

Just heard of this -- great, simple idea for a fund-raiser with 100% of the monies going to solid, local charities. The group behind this includes entrepreneur Wayne Huizenga and son Wayne II, known for Waste Management and Blockbuster and AutoNation companies as well as others. They are seeking NFL participation for a SuperBowl spot. As I understand it, not all the problems with Blockbuster, etc. have happened under Huizenga's control, by the way.

Africa's hunger - a systemic crisis By Martin Plaut BBC Africa analyst The number of Africans needing food aid has doubled in a decade More than half of Africa is now in need of urgent food assistance. The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) is warning that 27 sub-Saharan countries now need help. But what appear as isolated disasters brought about by drought or conflict in countries like Somalia, Malawi, Niger, Kenya and Zimbabwe are - in reality - systemic problems. It is African agriculture itself that is in crisis, and according to the International Food Policy Research Institute, this...

Number of protesters has doubled in the past week, U.S. official says. SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - The number of detainees on hunger strike at the U.S. military detention facility in Guantanamo Bay more than doubled in the last week to 84, an official said Thursday. Forty-six detainees joined 38 already on strike on Dec. 25, said Guantanamo spokesman Lt. Col. Jeremy Martin, who added that the number of fasting detainees “routinely fluctuates.” “On the anniversary of Sept. 11, the number of strikers spiked to 131,” Martin said. “They steadily decreased over the weeks and months until Dec. 25, and...

Dear Family and Friends, There is a massive, massive crisis underway in Zimbabwe. As I write this letter on Saturday the 26th November 2005, history will remember this date as the one on which elections for a Senate that we didn't want and couldn't afford were being held. Ordinary people, however, will remember this as the time when MDC leaders were tearing their party apart and Zanu PF were squabbling for the last few scraps on the political bone. This is the November when both the MDC and Zanu PF seem to have lost track of the most important struggle...

Harare - Villagers in southern Zimbabwe are set to receive more grain inflows, Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe said as he wound up a campaign trail ahead of this weekend's controversial senate elections, the Herald newspaper reported on Friday. Mugabe's ruling Zimbabwe African National Union - Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF) party has focused its campaign for the senate polls on the southern Matabeleland provinces, which are traditional strongholds of the opposition. "We are concerned to know how people are managing in these difficult circumstances in terms of food," Mugabe told traditional leaders and civil servants on Thursday in drought-hit Insiza. "I would...

A hunger eating up the world China's insatiable demand for proteins as well as oil is turning Brazil into the takeaway for the workforce of the world. In the second part of our series, we reveal how the soya trade is creating a gold rush which is deforesting the Amazon Jonathan Watts in Santarem, the Amazon Thursday November 10, 2005 The Guardian (UK) A smoky haze blurs the frontier between the world's mightiest forest and its biggest threat: the humble soya bean. The four-month burning season in the Amazon is when the giant trees felled to make space for crops...

LONDON, November 10 (IranMania) - Several teachers who were laid off in the southern province of Fars joined protests by hundreds of workers from the western province of Qazvin against their dismissal and poor working conditions, ISNA reported. The protesters had gathered in front of the Parliament in downtown Tehran demanding to meet Majlis Speaker Gholamali Haddad-Adel. They chanted slogans and held up banners reading, ?God is Great, God is Great, Justice, Justice and We're Hungry, according to ISNA. Even the heavy rain failed to disperse the protesters, who were holding plastic bags to protect themselves from the rain. The...

AUSTIN - A higher percentage of households in Texas were at risk of going hungry over the past three years than in any other state, according to data released Friday by the U.S. Agriculture Department. Between 2002 and 2004, more than 16 percent of Texas households were food insecure, meaning that at some point they had trouble providing enough food for all their family members, the USDA report said. In nearly 5 percent of Texas households, at least one family member went hungry at least one time during that period because they couldn't afford enough food. That's the fourth-highest rate...

Mugabe to speak at hunger debate as he defies EU travel ban again By David Blair in Johannesburg and Hilary Clarke in Rome (Filed: 17/10/2005) President Robert Mugabe flew to Rome in defiance of a European Union travel ban after the United Nations caused outrage by inviting him to address a conference on world hunger today.Zimbabwe, once the bread basket of southern Africa and a major exporter of food, now depends on western aid to avoid starvation. Mr Mugabe will speak at the FAO conference Four million Zimbabweans, a third of the population, need supplies from the World Food Programme....

North Korea has formally told the UN it no longer needs food aid, despite reports of malnutrition in the country. Deputy Foreign Minister Choe Su-hon said the country now had enough food, due to a good harvest, and accused the US of using aid as a political weapon. The move comes as the international community continues to urge North Korea to give up its nuclear ambitions. Analysts say Pyongyang might be worried that accepting more food aid now could be perceived as a sign of weakness. The North may also have lost patience with efforts by foreign agencies to monitor...

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - The number of detainees on a hunger strike at the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay has fallen by almost two-thirds since last week, a military official said Tuesday. Forty-five detainees are currently on the hunger strike, down from 131 last week, Guantanamo spokeswoman Lt. Angela King Sweigart said in an e-mail message. Detainees must miss nine straight meals for the military to classify them as being on a hunger strike. On Thursday, the military said the hunger strike had grown to include 131 detainees — more than a quarter of the base's some 500 prisoners...

New York - The African leader some call a hero and others a destructive despot suggests people in his country aren't hungry, they just can't eat their favourite food. President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, said in an interview with The Associated Press that his people are "very, very happy" though aid agencies report 4 million of 11.6 million face famine. "You describe it as if we have a whole cemetery," Mugabe said of a reporter's description of the southern African nation's dire straits, blaming "continuous years of drought." The problem is reliance on corn, he said during Friday's interview, "but...