The priorities are all wrong

Here we are in a world which unconscionably spends trillions of dollars on armaments and where wastage of food is rife in many Western countries - yet, as this piece on IPS reveals, malnutrition continues unabated.

The only word for it is shameful. It also highlights what our priorities are. War, and the havoc it creates seem to be of #1 importance to many nations. The welfare of people, especially vulnerable children unable to fend for themselves, secondary.

"With the number of hungry people growing to more than a billion last year, the world is "nowhere near" reaching the objectives outlined in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), according to the latest Global Hunger Index (GHI) released Monday.

The first MDG - to halve the proportion of hungry people between 1990 and 2015 - is an unlikely hope, says the 2010 GHI report.

Though the percentage of undernourished people fell from 20 percent in 1990-92 to 16 percent in 2004-06, recent global events have reversed that progress. The widespread economic recession and lingering effects of the 2007-08 global food crisis saw the number of undernourished people surpass one billion in 2009."

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Mahler's Prodigal Son

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