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.