15million Ethiopians face starvation - again.

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mad1

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LIVE Aid hero Sir Bob Geldof yesterday warned that 15 million Ethiopians face starving to death.

A new famine sweeping the country could hit TWICE as many people as the 1984 disaster ? which prompted Sir Bob?s legendary ?78million fundraiser.

Sir Bob was moved to make a fresh appeal after hearing about an eight year-old Ethiopian boy so hungry he just wanted a quick death ? and a mum who had no food for her kids.

Dad-of-four Sir Bob told Radio 4?s Today programme: ?What gets me is that he just wants death to hurry up.

?If my four kids come home from school and I have nothing to give them ? and then I hear one of the youngest ones saying: ?Well, come on death, anything is preferable to this?, that is unacceptable for anyone.?

Sir Bob then blasted the EU for spending half its budget on the ?27billion-a-year Common Agricultural Policy rather than famine relief.

He said: ?Live Aid put this at the very top of the political agenda.

?Yet we now see 15 million people threatened in just one country.?


Six million Ethiopians are already in desperate need of food after drought caused crops to fail.

By March next year it could be 15 million ? one in four of the debt crippled African nation?s population.

Ethiopia?s PM Meles Zenawi yesterday pleaded for international help.

?The numbers involved in the 1984-85 disaster were roughly a third to a half of the number of people involved now,? he said.


?So if that was a nightmare, this will be too ghastly to contemplate.?

Britain has already sent ?12million in aid and charities like Oxfam are launching appeals.

One million Ethiopians died in the 1984 famine, which led ex-Boomtown Rates singer Sir Bob to put on the 16-hour Live Aid concerts in Philadelphia and London.

Stars like Sting, David Bowie, Mick Jagger, Elton John, Paul McCartney and Wham were watched on TV by 1.4billion people and raised ?70million. Hit single Do They Know It?s Christmas? raised another ?8million.



TO donate to Oxfam?s Ethiopia Appeal call 01865 313131 or online at www.oxfam.org.uk.


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:(
 
I feel very ashamed to say that I truly thought everything had improved there too.....

I feel sad again....................


gawd its such a fuked up world..............


I think, the worst thing to witness, on TV, when it shows food taken over, is the fighting and killing for the food.......


survival....

..its all about survival......
 
I remember one time someone arguing the point (not in here) that the country is way too over-populated due to them not knowing or having any contraception...........


and thats why there are so many deaths......

surely even if it was halved, the prob would still be there, it still IS there...........

All those children know is dry land, and hunger pain.......nothing else.................

:(
 
I'm sure it would please everyone to know that America dumps surplus grain in the ocean, in order to keep farm prices propped--when they're terrible to begin with. So much food is wasted!

Melon
 
Mad:
afik the problem is missmanagement and violence (from so called rebells and from the government).

If you're interested in that i can take a look at a ai-article about that (i knew a read about the problem a few weeks ago).

melon said:
I'm sure it would please everyone to know that America dumps surplus grain in the ocean, in order to keep farm prices propped--when they're terrible to begin with. So much food is wasted!

the European Union did the same for years :(
Official excuse - they don't want that makret prices drop too much in that region and therefore local farmers don't make enough money. I'm sure the starving people understand that :-((((

Klaus
 
Klaus said:
Official excuse - they don't want that makret prices drop too much in that region and therefore local farmers don't make enough money. I'm sure the starving people understand that :-((((

They should dump it in Ethiopia, rather than the ocean. :|

Melon
 
i'm kind of surprised he didn't mention about trying to do another live aid. then again, i'm not really. to be able to get the amount of donations, viewers, etc. that the first live aid got, they'd need people like britney spears and jennifer lopez, and since they're supposed to be giving all proceeds to charity, it means the performers don't get paid. we know britney wouldn't have that. :tsk:
 
mad1 said:
Sir Bob was moved to make a fresh appeal after hearing about an eight year-old Ethiopian boy so hungry he just wanted a quick death ? and a mum who had no food for her kids.

Dad-of-four Sir Bob told Radio 4?s Today programme: ?What gets me is that he just wants death to hurry up.

Dear god...that is just heartbreaking...:sad:

What a fricked up situation over there...I feel so sad for all those people.

I hope they get some help...I hope the situation gets better over there.

Those poor people...:tsk:...

Angela
 
I heard this on the radio, and I actually heard a little boy saying "If this is it, then hurry up death", or words to that effect.
It's so sad. A child should not be facing death, they shouldn't have to expect to die and they should not want to die.
It makes me mad. If our countries had had the grace to fully write off the debt the third world has to them then they might not be in this mess.

I don't think Sir Bob would do another live aid for two reasons. Firstly, I think it was a truely one off thing.
Secondly, he was heartbroken when he heard that the money he raised for them would be enough for them for one day. For the money it was in food, equalled the same as what they would have to pay back to us in debt.

It's sickening, but at least this time the famine is on the horizon. It is not yet happening in full force. Maybe, just maybe, we can be moved to do something significant.
 
I think we need to get to the root of the situation. Maybe instead of giving money we could help the land and make it so they could grow crops again. It's like a cold, people cover up the symptoms instead of getting at the actual germs. In turn the cold gets unnoticed so It takes longer to go away.
 
RavenStar said:
I think we need to get to the root of the situation. Maybe instead of giving money we could help the land and make it so they could grow crops again. It's like a cold, people cover up the symptoms instead of getting at the actual germs. In turn the cold gets unnoticed so It takes longer to go away.

Right Ravenstar - and that means stoping Carbondioxide emissions drastically.

The last 20 years the Arctic sea-ice thicknes dropped from more than 3 meters to less than 2 meters, North American people increased the CO_2 emissions py approx. 1/4.
US Citizens are still world leaders in these emissions (no matter if you compare it per person or the emissions of the whole country (in the same timespan Western Europe decreased it's CO_2 emissions).
Because of that the world climate is seriousely in danger, one side effect is that people who have never heared of green house effect (they have neither the money nor the time to inform themselfes though various medias don't even know what TV is) have a serious problem to survive.

Also the climate catastrophe isn't the only reason for that food shortage where all these people have to starve to death, but it seems to be the mayor reason.

Stop buying SUV gas guzzlers, think about spending you money for less destructive cars (e.g. there are cars out there who "only" need 3 liters / 100km not 30l/100km)
Of course the emission is more important than the fuel efficiency (for example for several years the Porsche 911 needed more fuel than for example the Honda Accord - but hat less emissions).

Think about your lifestyle if you can change it to a less destructive style. We should stop to convince the rest of the world that our lifestyle is the best and think about where we want to go.
If we start to spend money for so called eco-products we can be sure industry will develop more of them for us.

Klaus
 
RavenStar said:
I think we need to get to the root of the situation. Maybe instead of giving money we could help the land and make it so they could grow crops again. It's like a cold, people cover up the symptoms instead of getting at the actual germs. In turn the cold gets unnoticed so It takes longer to go away.

Well-planned land reforms are a good idea too. :yes:
 
you know, if our governments would only learn how to use our money more properly situations like this would surely be smaller in size.

canada for instance has screwed around with tax dollars for a long time. recently they spent a billion dollars on gun registeration and ahve asked for more. they have since backed down after heated pressure against them.

really, the government does not speak for us.

when it comes down to the good of mankind, the government is not there.
 
sorry to jump in to this late but a week or so ago the Wall St. Journal ran an article about a man who saved Asia from starving and is trying to do the same thing with Africa -- but no one is supporting him. The article is quite long [a bit too long to post] and I'm at work at the Wall St. Journal typing this and I doubt they would like me breaking copyright law on their computers. So if you want to read it, PM me and I can email you a copy later.
 
Zoomerang96:
Right, governments love to throw money around for various reasons:
1. Lobyists
2. "Paying back" the money they got for their election campaigns

:no:

I have not enough insight in Canada's politics to have an opinion about the gun registeration thing you mentioned.
But obviousely it's a big advance for a country to be able to track down the owner of a gun.

And - to stay ontopic :wink: - something to the third world politics from our "first world countries". I really hate to see that the US and the EU (just an example, most (all?) other 1st world countries do the same) grant billions of $ subsidies to their agricultur sector, the sector where 3rd world countries could compete and make money. (also tariff protection).
At the same time they tell these countries to open their market for competition, because that's the best (but just for us)

Klaus
 
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