Free Republic

Food riots. Scores of panicked people protesting, burning effigies and chanting. Shops being ransacked, supplies running out as soon as they come in, and stricken communities stockpiling rice, bread and water for fear of going without. These have happened in Haiti and Egypt in recent months as the price of scarce food has soared. But what if they happened on the streets of Bromley? Or Newcastle? Or Bath? As bizarre as this might seem, the prospect of UK food shortages has started to be taken seriously by food manufacturers and retailers. The global food shortage has raced to the top...

The Ug99 fungus, called stem rust, could wipe out more than 80% of the world's wheat as it spreads from Africa, scientists fear. The race is on to breed resistant plants before it reaches the U.S. The spores arrived from Kenya on dried, infected leaves ensconced in layers of envelopes. Working inside a bio-secure greenhouse outfitted with motion detectors and surveillance cameras, government scientists at the Cereal Disease Laboratory in St. Paul, Minn., suspended the fungal spores in a light mineral oil and sprayed them onto thousands of healthy wheat plants. After two weeks, the stalks were covered with deadly...

Scientists are trying to develop wheat strains resistant to a fungus that has spread from Africa to Iran and is likely to show up soon in India and Pakistan. The Ug99 fungus, also known as stem rust, is likely to spread worldwide, either through wind-blown spores or carried inadvertently by people, food industry analysts said. "It's a time bomb," Jim Peterson, an expert on wheat genetics at Oregon State University in Corvallis, told the Los Angeles Times. "It moves in the air, it can move in clothing on an airplane. We know it's going to be here. It's a matter...

The goal seems to be nothing short of eradicating American farms and self-sustainability. Even DEMOCRATS are opposing the Obama Energy Bill. Climate change legislation will be utterly devastating for American farmers. Rep. Leonard Boswell (D-IA) of the House Agriculture Committee says that not only will he not vote for it, but no one else on his committee will support it either. The bill would increase the cost of everything that farmers depend on, such as diesel fuel, gasoline, fertilizers, pesticides, and a host of other things. It would raise taxes on energy by $846 billion over the next ten years....

Changes in the sun is shortening growing season while credit crunch leaves farmers unable to purchase fertilizer at a time when world food supplies are at all time lows. Crop failures around the world are snowballing into a dangerous climax that may lead to social unrest and famine. Suggest reading entire article and links within it. Very scary... and this is happening... it is not conjecture. A mini ice age may be on the way because of sunspot cycles and already existing empty grain, coffee, et al silos.

Barron's: Bjorn, what do you think will be the outcome of the negotiations to curb global warming this December? Lomborg: The participating nations will again agree to spend quite a bit of money to cut carbon emissions and again achieve virtually nothing. We already tried that twice -- in Rio in 1992, and in Kyoto in 1997. Both of these treaties failed. We will see a lot of posturing, but presumably this isn't about having a lot of environmental ministries or even presidents and prime ministers come out and claim credit for making costly commitments that we won't be able...

Yesterday, Roger Hedgecock and the Liberty Papers posted an unclassified DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis report titled:Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment.The “report” was one of the most embarrassingly shoddy pieces of propaganda I’d ever read out of DHS. I couldn’t believe it was real.I spent the day chasing down DHS spokespeople, who have been tied up preparing for a very important homeland security event later today: The First Lady is coming to visit their Washington office. Priorities, you know.Well, the press office got back to me and verified that the document...

If we don't rise up and stop this Joker now, we will be in a depression, close to famine and at war with China, Russia, Syria & Iran by 2012. The Axis of Evil is going to wait for the Cap n Trade to cause our agriculture sector to grow for fuel or not at all and then China (through Venezuela), after it stops importing to the US, will force Brazil (Third Largest Exporter in the World) & Other Central/South American Countries to stop exporting to the US (20% of total distribution). The damage of removing Farm Subsidies coupled with...

HR 875 The food police, criminalizing organic farming and the backyard gardener, and violation of the 10th amendment This bill is sitting in committee and I am not sure when it is going to hit the floor.  One thing I do know is that very few of the Representatives have read it.  As usual they will vote on this based on what someone else is saying.  Urge your members to read the legislation and ask for opposition to this devastating legislation.  Devastating for everyday folks but great for factory farming ops like Monsanto, ADM, Sodexo and Tyson to name a...

N. Korea disputes military recruit claims Published: Jan. 25, 2009 at 11:01 AM PYONGYANG, North Korea, Jan. 25 (UPI) -- North Korea says U.S. claims that many of its potential military recruits are unfit for service is a "cock-and-bull story." A recent U.S. National Intelligence Commission report claiming that 1990s famines in the North have rendered many potential soldiers born during the period with "cognitive deficiencies" drew an angry official response from Pyongyang Saturday, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported. "They floated the cock-and-bull story," said an official statement broadcast by the official Korean Central News Agency. "It is an...

Brussels A ban on pesticides agreed by the European Parliament could make vegetable production impossible and result in a dramatic drop of wheat yields, farmers have said. The National Farmers’ Union said growing carrots, parsnips and onions would be more difficult because the herbicides that MEPs voted to phase out killed weeds that affect these crops. A total of 22 substances will be banned over the next decade as part of an EU plan to remove chemicals that are thought to pose risks to human health and damage water quality. Fears have been raised of a 20 per cent reduction...

Last week I received a very concerned call from South Dakota farmer and agronomist Bryan Lutter. "Neal, we're out of propane!" I figured this was personal distress – he and his family farm over three square miles of land and I know this has been a tough year for many people. He promptly corrected my misconception when I tried to console him. "No, everybody is out, all three grain elevators, we can't get fuel for the bins, and we're coming in real wet this year." There are equally dramatic issues due to the bankruptcy of Verasun and the apparent insolvency...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFJGr1qYiww For anyone who cares to sit through this video I would be extremely grateful for intelligent responses to the allegations it presents. I've never heard about this supposed Holocaust until I saw this and coming from this guy, I'm not sure I give it much credibility. Still if I would like to be able to refute if it's just garbage but I don't have any information about this subject and preliminary searching isn't coming up with much. If anyone has census statistics, explanations, or general myth debunking of this, it would be greatly appreciated.

Somalia is in danger of descending into famine while the world's attention is focused on the problem of piracy off its coast, the Red Cross has warned. BBC Africa analyst Martin Plaut says agencies like the International Committee of the Red Cross are very wary about using words like famine. The ICRC's Alexandre Liebeskind said the violence had made it almost impossible for aid agencies to operate. About half of Somalia's population is dependent on food aid. Drought, floods and nearly two decades of conflict have driven many into destitution. Alexandre Liebeskind, head of the ICRC in East Africa, says...

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI prayed for the victims of the 1932-33 "Great Famine" that left millions dead in Ukraine and other parts of the Soviet Union. In an apparent reference to the Soviet policies of collectivization and food confiscation that provoked the famine, the pope condemned ideologically based governmental actions that violate basic human rights. He made the remarks at a noon blessing at the Vatican Nov. 23, at a time when many Ukrainians were commemorating the 75th anniversary of the Holodomor, or "death by hunger," the name given to the famine that occurred in the Soviet...

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev`s statement on the Stalin-era famine provoked disappointment in Ukraine, the country`s ambassador to Russia said on Tuesday, RIA Novosti reported. In a letter to Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko released by the Kremlin on Friday, the Russian president accused Kyiv of using the Stalin-era famine, known as the Holodomor, to drive a wedge between Ukraine and Russia, and urged efforts to forge a common position on the tragedy. In the letter, Medvedev said Ukraine`s attempts to declare the Holodomor an act of genocide by the Soviet authorities meant he could not attend commemoration events in Kyiv. "Of...

Leaders from around the world Saturday marked the 75th anniversary of the famine that the ripped through the Ukraine in the early 1930s, as Ukrainian leaders seek to bring more attention to the plight of the millions who died from hunger. But conspicuously missing from the honoring of Holodomor , or "death by hunger," were leaders from Moscow, who have objected to recent calls for the deaths to be labeled as genocide. Emma Stickgold has this report for VOA in Moscow. The anniversary of Holodomor is traditionally marked in late November, when the food shortages began resulting in the death...

NEW YORK -- The New York Civil Liberties Union has demanded that city officials explain why they ordered a private art school to remove a banner displaying an image of Josef Stalin. In a letter Thursday to the Department of Buildings, NYCLU executive director Donna Lieberman expressed concern that the banner was taken down from The Cooper Union after some residents of the local Ukrainian community complained that it "seemed to promote" the Soviet dictator on the 75th anniversary of a famine he imposed. The famine, called the Holodomor, killed millions of Ukrainians. The banner was part of an art...

MUTARE, Zimbabwe, Oct. 14 (UPI) -- Famine on a scale never before seen in Zimbabwe is quickly and quietly overtaking the country, aid workers said. Emaciated children are dying a rate that is overwhelming rural hospitals and is even spreading to sections of the urban middle classes as a result of an economic catastrophe brought about by President Robert Mugabe's policies, The Times of London reported Tuesday. The newspaper said that an undercover 600-mile journey through Zimababwe's Manicaland province revealed exhausted food reserves and widespread instances of kwashiorkor, marasmus and pellagra -- diseases brought about by hunger. About 5 million...

Despite the “populist uprising” to block the economic bailout, President Bush signed a $700 billion rescue plan Oct. 3. The bailout spurred much debate, including a second dispute between financial analysts Peter Schiff and Stephen Leeb on CNN. CNN’s “Your $$$$$” hosted the heated discussion on Oct. 4. In it, Schiff and Leeb argued about the need for a bailout – which Schiff termed a choice “between freedom and socialism.” In contrast, Leeb referred to it as a choice between inflation and starvation. Delaying a bailout would cause “mass starvation, not just in this country, all over the globe,” according...