Free Republic

The global nanny state wants to take another bite out of your freedom. Its new target – your dinner plate. The Guardian reported on June 2 that the UN was supporting a switch to a radical anti-meat agenda. “A global shift towards a vegan diet is vital to save the world from hunger, fuel poverty and the worst impacts of climate change, a UN report said today,” wrote the paper. Here’s how the group Vegan Action describes this extreme vegetarianism. “While vegetarians choose not to use flesh foods, vegans also avoid dairy and eggs, as well as fur, leather, wool,...

FRONT ROYAL, Virginia, May 3, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Population Research Institute (PRI) has just released the third video in its YouTube cartoon series, designed to refute the idea of overpopulation with science — and stick figures. Contrary to claims advanced by population control advocates, the latest video reveals data indicating that world hunger is not caused by a lack of food, but by wars, lack of transportation, and economic factors. To date the series has garnered well over 200,000 views on YouTube, and has made PRI one of the more popular non-profit channels on the video channel.

The most enduring images of the Great Depression from 1929 through to the beginning of World War II for America in 1941 were those of homeless people, hobo camps, and of soup kitchens to feed the hungry. During the Reagan years, the media was filled with stories of the homeless as if to refute any improvement in the economy under a conservative president. These days, however, as America's national debt and deficit continues to spiral out of control, the poor and the hungry remain largely unseen and, most significantly, largely unreported. About the only thing one can find on the...

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Despite good intentions, the push to privatize government functions and insistence upon "free trade" that is too often unfair has caused declining food production, increased poverty and a hunger crisis for millions of people in many African nations, researchers conclude in a new study. Market reforms that began in the mid-1980s and were supposed to aid economic growth have actually backfired in some of the poorest nations in the world, and just in recent years led to multiple food riots, scientists report today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a professional journal. "Many of these...

North Korea's food shortage is expected to further worsen this year, as the communist state's grain output in 2009 is believed to have fallen from the previous year, a government official in Seoul said Wednesday. The North is estimated to have produced 4.1 million tons of grain last year, a drop of about 200,000 tons compared to 2008, the Unification Ministry official said on condition of anonymity. The amount falls about 1.3 million tons short of what the impoverished country needs this year to feed its 24 million people, the official said. The North produced 4.3 million tons in 2008....

The U.N.'s controversial climate report is coming under fire -- again -- this time by one of its own scientists, who admits he can't find any evidence to support a warning about a climate-caused North African food shortage. The statement comes from a key 2007 report to the U.N., and asserts that by 2020 yields from rain-fed agriculture could be reduced by up to 50% in some African countries thanks to climate change. But this weekend, a key author of the team behind that report told The Sunday Times that he could find no evidence to support his own group's...

Bartering is Back in North Korea By Yoo Gwan Hee, from South Pyongan in 2008 [2010-01-20 16:27 ] As predicted by experts on North Korea’s economy, since the authorities have yet to officially release state prices, the North Korean people are now surviving by bartering. A defector, who spoke with his family in North Hamkyung Province on Tuesday, reported the news to the Daily NK, “I called my family to send some money to them as I had heard they were in trouble, and they told me that the current situation is unspeakably terrible. They live only by bartering with...

Before currency reform, food price in Pyongyang and Chongjin (in old denomination per kg) Between Sept. and Nov., 2009, rice: 1800~2400 won, corn: 800~1100 won After currency reform, rice price in Pyongyang and Chongjin (in new denomination per kg) date rice pricein new won contributing factor Dec.2009 1st ~ 9th  20~ 25 government institutes currency reform1 new won = 100 old won 10~15th  30~ 45 price in new currency would not settle properly, and price rises 20~30th  50~ 60 Public Security impose ban on the use of foreign currency on Dec. 28; price rises Jan.2010  1st~5th  80~120 price doubled...

North Korea 'struggling against civil unrest' The revaluation of the won has led to rampant inflation and civil disorder Richard Lloyd Parry, Asia Editor The North Korean dictatorship is struggling to contain civil unrest and runaway inflation caused by a drastic revaluation of its won currency, which is threatening new food shortages in the already hungry nation, according to reports in South Korea. /snip Agents of the People’s Safety Agency (PSA), which is conducting a so-called “Fifty Day Battle” against illegal enterprise, were reported to have been attacked and driven away as they sought out market activity in the city...

Violence in N.Korea as hunger woes mount: reports AFP February 3, 2010, 1:15 am SEOUL (AFP) - Angry North Koreans have attacked security agents as hunger woes mount following a crackdown on free-market trade, according to reports on Tuesday from groups in Seoul with contacts in the communist state. Social unrest and riots have flared since a shock currency revaluation by Pyongyang last November worsened shortages of food and other goods for an increasingly desperate population, they said. /snip "Therefore, people are taking revenge on agents, since they feel so desperate that regardless of their actions, they will die," the...

A new survey indicates that nearly one in five US households could not afford to buy enough food at least once during the past year. An anti-hunger group said the poll found 18.2 percent of households reported "food hardship" -- lacking money to buy enough food -- in 2009. The figure reflects a higher percentage than the government's "food insecurity" rating of 14.6 percent of households, or 49 million people, in 2008. "There are no hunger-free areas of America," Jim Weill of the Food Research and Action Center was quoted as saying by Reuters. He added that he hoped President...

Looters have broken into U.N. food warehouses in Haiti's crumbled capital, an official said Friday, as security and logistical challenges mounted for groups trying to feed at least 2 million people reeling from a devastating earthquake. The U.N. World Food Program had 15,000 tons of food aid in Haiti prior to Tuesday's 7.0-magnitude earthquake, stocks designed for hurricane relief. Spokeswoman Emilia Casella said local partners reported that the U.N. warehouse in Port-au-Prince's Cite Soleil neighborhood was looted but the agency did not know how much aid was stolen or exactly when it was taken.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti It was lunchtime in one of Haiti's worst slums, and Charlene Dumas was eating mud. With food prices rising, Haiti's poorest can't afford even a daily plate of rice, and some take desperate measures to fill their bellies. Charlene, 16 with a 1-month-old son, has come to rely on a traditional Haitian remedy for hunger pangs: cookies made of dried yellow dirt from the country's central plateau. The mud has long been prized by pregnant women and children here as an antacid and source of calcium. But in places like Cite Soleil, the oceanside slum where Charlene shares...

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - It was lunchtime in one of Haiti's worst slums, and Charlene Dumas was eating mud. With food prices rising, Haiti's poorest can't afford even a daily plate of rice, and some take desperate measures to fill their bellies. Charlene, 16 with a 1-month-old son, has come to rely on a traditional Haitian remedy for hunger pangs: cookies made of dried yellow dirt from the country's central plateau. The mud has long been prized by pregnant women and children here as an antacid and source of calcium. But in places like Cite Soleil, the oceanside slum where Charlene...

Haiti facing 'major food crisis' Malnutrition is widespread in Haiti, one of the poorest countries in the world Haiti faces a "major crisis" if the international community does not increase food aid to the country, the UN's food agency has warned. The World Food Programme director for the region, Pedro Medrano, said Haiti required more help to feed its poor. He appealed for $54m (£27m) in new funding to counter food prices which have risen sharply around the world. At least six people were killed in Haiti last month as protests over rising prices turned violent. The prices of wheat,...

Heavy snow in parts of the Midwest could cause as much as 100 million bushels of the 2009 corn crop to be lost. According to analysts in several Corn Belt states, a significant number of acres were yet to be harvested when snow came in December. Now, with the storm that struck the first week of January adding more snow, a lot of the corn still in the field will be there for the rest of the winter. It likely won't be harvested until spring and significant yield loss will occur.

01-09-2010 21:52 Kim Jong-il Determined to Feed His People North Korea's paramount leader Kim Jong-il is reportedly determined to realize his father's will, which he has so far failed to achieve: feeding the people. "I am resolute in my determination to enhance people's living standards in the shortest possible time so that they don't have to envy the life of people in other countries," he said, according to a North Korea's official Web site, Uriminjokkiri. Kim's father, Kim Il-sung, was a famous guerilla fighter against the Japanese colonial occupiers and founded the nation. Kim Il-sung left a will that called...

Obesity is a disease of excess, but a new study suggests that a few obese patients are actually lacking something--a piece of one of their chromosomes. The loss might remove a gene that helps the body manage blood sugar and appetite. Obesity runs in families, and researchers have identified several genetic variants that seem to boost the odds of becoming obese. However, these variants only explain a minority of cases. In the last decade, researchers have discovered that genetic differences among people can stem from lost or duplicated sections of chromosomes, called copy number variants (CNVs). Because of CNVs, for...

Anti-hunger aromas that make one feel full could help fight the global obesity epidemic, scientists now suggest. Everyone is familiar with scents that arouse the appetite, as well as odors that turn the stomach. But apparently molecules that make up a food's aroma can also activate areas of the brain that trigger the feeling of fullness. As people chew food, scents wafting up to the back of the nose from inside the mouth help quench the sensation of hunger, food technologist Rianne Ruijschop at NIZO Food Research in Ede, The Netherlands, and her colleagues found. "These were quite unexpected results,"...

Christian Children's Fund is changing its name to ChildFund International. The board of directors of the worldwide relief organization voted this week on the change as part of a new strategy. The new name aims to reflect the charity's worldwide reach and its affiliation with the ChildFund Alliance, a coalition that includes 11 other international organizations that help children living in poverty. Chief executive Anne Lyman Goddard said Friday that the name change, which takes effect July 1, will standardize the ChildFund name globally among groups that work to connect donors to programs that help children. "Now working under different...