Foreign Policy
Posted: 2008-04-08 18:31:44 [1]
Food riots seem to be happening around the world on a near-daily basis [2] lately. U.N. peacekeepers fired rubber bullets and tear gas at an angry mob that tried to storm [3] the National Palace in the Hatian capital, Port-au-Prince today. Riots began in Haiti last Wednesday and five people have already been killed in the violence. According to Reuters, the price of rice has doubled over the last six months and Haiti's poor are growing desperate:
If the government cannot lower the cost of living it simply has to leave. That's our decision," said protester Renand Alexandre. "If the police and U.N. troops want to shoot at us, that's OK, because in the end if we are not killed by bullets we'll die of hunger."
Unsurprisingly, Haiti's government is stumped about how to deal with what is, in fact, a growing global crisis. [4]
UK Telegraph
Posted: 2008-04-08 18:32:38 [5]
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| Scuffles in bread queues are now a daily occurrence |
"I've been here since six this morning, it is now nine o'clock and still no bread," Asma Rushdi shouts in front of a tiny state-owned bakery in the overcrowded and impoverished area of Bulaq Dakrur in Cairo.
She is only allowed to spend one Egyptian pound (9p), which will get her 20 pieces of the subsidised flat round bread baladi - the staple of the Egyptian diet.
For Asma, who has to feed her family, including four children and two in-laws, from her husband's monthly salary of £200, "bread is everything".
Egypt is in the grip of a serious bread crisis brought on by a combination of the rising cost of wheat on world markets and sky-rocketing inflation.
The price of bread has increased fivefold in private bakeries, creating panic in state-run bakeries that the staple may run out.
Scuffles in bread queues are a daily occurrence. In recent weeks, they have turned into violent clashes, leaving at least seven people dead, according to police.
Police clashed with protesters in the Nile Delta city of Mahalla on Sunday, firing tear gas and arresting dozens after angry residents demanding an end to price hikes and soaring inflation set two schools ablaze and burnt tyres along the city's railway.Egypt is the world's biggest consumer of bread, with each Egyptian eating 400 grams of bread a day. That compares with France - the land of the baguette - where the figure is only 130g per day.
The shortages have forced bakers and consumers on to the black market. According to the state-owned daily Al-Ahram, 12,000 people have been detained in raids across the country in recent days and they are all to face justice over selling flour on the black market.
A 100 kilogram sack of subsidised flour is worth about $3.14. The same sack costs $377 on the black market.
The government is desperately scrambling to contain the crisis.
On Friday the authorities announced plans to suspend rice exports for six months from April and the commerce ministry said cement exports will also be frozen over the same period in an attempt to combat price rises.
Tackling their rising cost is a priority, with inflation reaching an annual rate of 12.5pc at the end of February in the most populous Arab nation, home to 78m people.