Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Food crisis

Recently, CNN reported that the food shortage in Africa and Asia is not only a humanitarian crisis, but may also become a global security problem. It takes a trained eye, and a fair amount of cynicism to decode what this sentence really means. Let's break it down.

Vocabulary:

Food shortage: a situation in which a population does not have enough access to food supplies. We don't care about the reasons behind such conditions. Mainly, we believe it's their own fucking mistake.

Africa and Asia: Some warm places, far, far away. Basically, we don't know what happens out there most of the time.

Humanitarian crisis: conditions under which human life is endangered due to poverty, disease and war.

Humanitarian crisis in Africa and Asia: stuff we shouldn't be worried about.

Global: referring to parts of the world dominated by rich countries (see also "international community").

Security problem: threats to economical and political interests and institutions.

3 comments:

Naj said...

This food crisis business suffers:

1) America's interventionism that has doubled the price of oil => more expensive production and transportation

2) Hording by the locals

3) Market speculations by the innocent "peace lovin'" westerners who are investing in "GREEN" energy and Bio-Fuel!!

It;s easy to blame it on "china and India are eating all the wheat", isn't it?!

Mahaan said...

Nice analysis!
And also thanks for your visits. It's always nice to hear from you.

Hydra said...

Naj, agree. It's always "the other" who's to blame. The US has some huge blind spots.

Nice to have you back, Mahaan.