World News 26-11-2003 War On Hunger `Is Being Lost` who: The United Nations what: Admits worldwide war on hunger is in danger of being lost where: Rome, Italy when: Yesterday snippet: "The fight against world hunger suffered a blow yesterday," announces The Scotsman, "when a new report revealed the number of undernourished people had risen to almost 850 million." The report from the United Nation`s food body said one in every seven people is now malnourished, "and warned that hopes of cutting hunger by half by 2015 looked increasingly remote." While the numbers of undernourished people went down in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Asia and the Pacific region, adds BBC News Online, "they continue to increase in sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and North Africa." But why the dichotomy? "Those who have bucked the trend share five characteristics," explains The Independent`s Paul Vallely. "Faster economic growth, rapid expansion in the agricultural sector, slower population growth, lower rates of HIV infection and far fewer natural emergencies." And it is the latter that is the most influential, believes Vallely. Those regions that have pulled away from famine "have been lucky not to have experienced the high levels of droughts and natural disasters that have increasingly afflicted the Third World over the past decade." In a parallel report, the World Health Organisation announced yesterday "that the global advance of Aids is continuing unabated, with 5 million new infections and 3 million deaths this year, up from 2.8 million deaths in 2002." Aids and hunger are intrinsically linked, points out The Independent. "It kills off farmers in their prime and leaves behind young orphans and aged parents - mouths with no one to feed them." As if these two reports weren`t gloomy enough, the UN`s Environmental Programme reveals that "all great ape species risk extinction, either in the immediate future or at best within 50 years," reports ITV News, "because of growing forest destruction, poaching, live animal trade and humans encroaching on their habitat." Programme chief Klaus Töpfer called for £15m to prevent mankind "destroying a bridge to our own origins" - adding that the sum is "the bare minimum we need, the equivalent of providing a dying man with bread and water." [... more]

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