Year of the hungry: 1,000,000,000 afflicted

Things don't get better in the world we live in. We might be making all sorts of strides in medicine and technology, but the simple act of being able to feed all the peoples on this planet of ours remains elusive.

The Independent reports on this shocking news "Year of the hungry: 1,000,000,000 afflicted" as we are about to start 2009:

"One billion people will go hungry around the globe next year for the first time in human history, as the international financial crisis deepens, the United Nations has told The Independent on Sunday.

The shocking landmark will be passed – despite a second record worldwide harvest in a row – because people are becoming too destitute to buy the food that is produced.

Decades of progress in reducing hunger are being abruptly reversed, dealing a devastating blow to a pledge by world leaders eight years ago to cut it in half by 2015.

Rich countries have failed to provide promised money to boost agriculture in the Third World; the financial crisis is starving developing countries of credit and driving their people into greater poverty, and food aid to the starving is expected to begin drying up next month."

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Mahler's Prodigal Son

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