Posted on 05/21/2008 10:59:34 AM PDT by old-and-old
SHANTO, Ethiopia (AP) -- This year's poor rains have nearly killed Bizunesh.
The rangy 3-year-old weighs less than 10 pounds, or 4 kilograms. Her long limbs, weak and folded like a praying mantis, cannot carry even her slight weight. She cannot speak. She doesn't want to eat. Health officials say she is permanently stunted.
Bizunesh -- whose name, sadly, means "plentiful" -- is one of untold numbers of children hit by this year's double blow of a countrywide drought and skyrocketing global food prices that has brought famine, once again, to Ethiopia.
"She should be bigger than this," said her mother Zewdunesh Feltam, rocking the listless child. "Before there was maize, different kinds of food. But now there is nothing ... I beg for milk from my neighbors."
The U.N. children's agency said in a statement Tuesday an estimated 126,000 Ethiopian children urgently need food and medical care because of severe malnutrition -- and called the crisis "the worst since the major humanitarian crisis of 2003."
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
The un is sittin’ on over a billion dollars - why don’t they feed them?
Buried way at the bottom of the article:
“Drought is especially disastrous in Ethiopia because more than 80 percent of people live off the land, and agriculture drives the economy, accounting for half of all domestic production and 85 percent of exports. But many also go hungry because of government policies. Ethiopia’s government buys all crops from farmers at fixed low prices. And the government owns all the land, so it cannot be used as collateral for loans.”
Clearly there needs to be some serious government reform before anything more than a Band-aid solution can happen. So many persons or groups will happily let thousands die just to hold on to their power. This is also a contributor to donation fatigue. It’s like handing money to a drug addict.
I had that tape years ago, good stuff.
we need to teach them how to fish, I agree.
I saw the show where he was saying this......reality is hell but needs to be said at times. I feel for these people but I’ll be damed if I’m going to be made to feel like it is America’s fault.
But they’ve been told that all the fish that doesn’t come from the government is poison.
This is a horrible tragedy... which keeps repeating itself.
BUT! We CANNOT save the whole world.
Thank you. From the initial reading here it looked like the saying "Populations don't starve, populations are starved" had an exception. Now we see the common instance of communist policies starving people.
“This” is a comedy routine by Sam Kinison (May God have mercy on his soul).
Ignorant? Maybe.
Cruel? Perhaps.
Baseless? NO WAY. Otherwise the problem whould not keep repeating itself.
That will not save the world.
That will allow the world to save itself.
It would be funny if it were poking fun at liberal ideology, but it does nothing more than fault the very people who are suffering as the result of liberal/socialist/statist ideology.
It has a hell of a lot higher percentage of desert than the “breadbasket of the world” does.
Are you TRYING to pick a fight today?
Completely agree. I won’t laugh and make fun of them, but I won’t feel guilty over it either.
Want to help them? Figure out a contraceptive that will work for 4-5 years at a time and then give the women there the opportunity to get it.
I know that is not a popular stance for some here, but most women are at the mercy of their husbands or boyfriends over there with no say in the matter.
It is far better to not have kids than to watch them starve to death because hubby likes unprotected sex only.
Why do they allow themselves to be subjected to it?
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