Category: General

The world is feeling the effects of the war in Ukraine from the gas pump all the way to the dinner table.

Food prices are climbing just about everywhere, raising the risk of civil unrest, especially in countries dependent on imported wheat from Russia and Ukraine. That includes much of the Middle East and North Africa.

Experts say the food price increases are happening at an especially bad time.

“It’s kind of a perfect storm,” said Cornell University economics professor Chris Barrett. “It’s not just a matter of, food prices are going high. It’s food prices are going high at a moment when many places are already crippled by the challenges posed by COVID, by political disruptions elsewhere, by droughts and floods and other natural disasters.”

“And there’s only so much that people can take before they grow displeased with their political leadership if it’s failing to take care of them,” he added. “So, unrest is, unfortunately, increasingly likely right now.”

Conflict worsens inflation

Russia is the world’s leading wheat exporter. Ukraine is number five. Together, they grow up to a third of the world’s wheat exports.

But when war broke out, the Black Sea became a combat zone. Some cargo ships took fire. It didn’t take sanctions to cut off exports.

“There wasn’t a ban on grain trade, but in effect the ports were closed. And so shipment has stopped,” said Texas A&M University economist Mark Welch.

“Countries that import from Ukraine and Russia have suddenly found their contracts canceled and they’re not getting food shipments they were expecting, which forces them into the market to pay a premium to replace food shipments that just aren’t going to arrive,” Barrett said. “And that bids up the price of food around the world.”

But food prices have been rising for almost two years.

Bad weather cut harvests in some of the world’s breadbaskets. Reserves are low.

That’s helped push prices to record highs even before the conflict started.

“We’ve tipped over that edge where every change, every little thing, has a very large impact,” University of Illinois economist Joe Janzen said.

More problems coming

Now, Ukraine’s next harvest is in doubt. Farmers should be getting ready for the next growing season. But that’s hard to do right now.

“Logistical lines are obviously heavily disrupted right now,” Barrett said. “Seeds aren’t arriving. Fuel isn’t arriving. Fertilizer isn’t arriving.”

Russia’s farmers are getting hit, too. They’re not under sanctions. But Russia’s banks are. That basically shuts Russian farmers out of the financial system.

“We’re not going to say, ‘You can’t ship grain,'” Welch said. “But will they ship it if they can’t get paid?”

Then there’s the sharp increase in energy prices that makes shipping everything more expensive.

Also, natural gas is a main ingredient in fertilizers commonly used to boost grain yields. So fertilizer costs more to make.

“Fertilizer prices last year were already quite high. They had come down somewhat in the last few months and now are very high again,” Janzen said, “in part because Russia and its ally Belarus are major fertilizer exporters.”

And Russia and Belarus are both under sanctions for the Ukraine invasion.

But those are problems for the next crop. People in parts of the Middle East and North Africa are feeling the effects now.

Fragile situations

“Yemen is a good case in point,” Barrett said. “There’s not a lot of wheat being grown in Yemen. They depend entirely upon wheat imports, and that requires transportation to get there.”

“The spike in global wheat prices plus the spike in global oil prices mean that prices for flour and for bread products in Yemen are already increasing significantly in a place where people really can’t afford to face an even higher cost of feeding their family basic daily rations,” he added.

In 2011, rising bread prices were one of the factors that set off the Arab Spring protests. When people already have grievances with their government, food inflation can tip them over the edge. A lot of places fit that description, according to U.N. World Food Program Chief Economist Arif Husain.

“If you look at Yemen, if you look at Lebanon, if you look at Syria, if you look at South Sudan, if you look at Ethiopia, and I can keep going,” Husain said in an interview with The Associated Press. “These countries are already in trouble because of conflicts.”

On the plus side, spring planting hasn’t started yet in some big wheat-growing countries. Farmers will probably switch some land where they planned to grow corn or soybeans to planting wheat. That should eventually bring the price down.

“That seems to be the main way that these crises are inevitably resolved is by production somewhere else in the world responding,” Janzen said. “We are fortunate that we have a global food system. We have the ability to produce and consume commodities like wheat all around the world.”

It will be months before the markets have a sense of how big the new crop will be, however. Those will be nail-biting months of watching the weather. Experts say, be ready for a wild ride.

Source: Voice of America

NAIROBI, The Kenyan government has finalized plans to support communities in 15 counties that were affected by locusts infestation.

Turkana County is among the affected counties where the ministry of Agriculture, Pastoral Economy and Fisheries had identified affected families to benefit from the cash grant.

The County Executive Committee for Agriculture, Pastoral Economy and Fisheries, George Emoru has assured the Community Driven Development Committees (CDDCs) from the 10 Wards of the release of Sh. 36 million, the first phase, which is meant to reinstate communities to the position they were before the effects of Desert Locusts infestation in 2019.

He disclosed that the beneficiaries of the grant include the 142 Common Interest Groups (CIGs) and Vulnerable Marginalized Groups (VMGs) well identified by communities.

He said out of the 10 Wards to be supported through the Emergency Locust Response Programme, two more namely, Kalapata and Kaeris Wards have been added.

Emoru said the second phase of the same funding is at the proposal’s development stage.

“The cash grant that is funded by World Bank is aimed at supporting affected farmers and livestock holding households restore their productive assets for sustained food security,” Emoru said.

The CEC advised members to prudently use the money to strengthen their resilience in improving food security at the household level.

He said there are many grants that have been given by partners and well-wishers and the impact has been unsatisfactory in the past and therefore encouraged members to put the grant into the right use.

The ministry’s Chief Officer, Abdullahi Yusuf, said the grant among other components in the Project is part of the strategy to improve food availability in the household level through increased income.

The participants of the training were drawn from; Kapedo/ Napeitom, Lokori/Kochodin, Lobei/Kotaruk, Lokiriama/Lorengkipi, Letea, Kalapata and Kaeris , Kerio, Kaputir and Kanamkemer Wards.

Source: Bahrain News Agency

WASHINGTON — The president of Somaliland is wrapping up a U.S. visit without the formal recognition he had sought for the self-declared republic. But he nonetheless is viewing his trip as a success.

“The most important thing to us which we discuss with people is recognition” as an independent sovereign nation and not as part of Somalia, Muse Bihi Abdi told VOA’s Somali Service in an interview Saturday.

He arrived March 13 for a series of meetings to court support from U.S. government officials, U.N. personnel, think tanks and civil society leaders. He plans to return to Somaliland later this week.

While the U.S. State Department emphasized the Biden administration’s commitment to a unified Somalia, it also held out the possibility of stronger ties with Somaliland.

“Welcomed the opportunity to meet … and discuss strengthening U.S. engagement with Somaliland within the framework of our single Somalia policy,” the State Department’s Bureau of African Affairs tweeted March 14 after Bihi met with its assistant secretary, Molly Phee.

The U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s ranking member, Republican Jim Risch of Idaho, responded by tweeting that the United States “should not limit ourselves to a ‘single #Somalia’ policy.” He added that the administration “should explore ALL areas of engagement in the region.”

Risch and two fellow committee members – Republican Mike Rounds and Democrat Chris Van Hollen – introduced a bill last week that would require the State Department to report to Congress on its engagement with Somaliland and would authorize a study on the feasibility of establishing a direct U.S.-Somaliland partnership.

Bihi – who was welcomed at a bipartisan congressional reception Thursday – has invited the United States to establish a diplomatic presence in Somaliland’s capital, Hargeisa.

Somaliland projects itself as a comparatively calm and stable partner in the tempestuous Horn of Africa region, where Somalia has been battling al-Shabab militants for more than a decade and neighboring Ethiopia has been caught up in civil war since November 2020.

The breakaway state also is strategically located on the Gulf of Aden, near Djibouti — home to the only permanent U.S. military base in Africa and the first overseas base for China — the Heritage Foundation pointed out in introducing Bihi’s keynote address last week at the conservative think tank’s Washington offices.

Talks have faltered

Somaliland in 1991 declared its independence from Somalia, which views it as a northern breakaway region, not a separate nation. The two sides have held repeated rounds of talks, most recently in June 2020 in Djibouti, when they agreed to appoint technical committees to continue discussions. No meetings have taken place since then.

Bihi blames the stalemate on the Mogadishu government, saying it doesn’t want to negotiate with Somaliland.

“Despite nine rounds of talks … the status of Somaliland never materialized,” he said in his Heritage Foundation remarks.

Somaliland sees “no future in the continuation of that dialogue with Somalia and is prepared to pursue all available avenues for its international recognition,” Bihi continued. “Somaliland believes that the international community has a moral obligation to support Somaliland’s pursuit of international recognition.”

But he noted in his interview with VOA, the United States “stood where other governments and Europe stand, which is ‘this issue is for Africa'” to determine.

The African Union has not recognized Somaliland as a sovereign and independent nation, nor has any individual country.

Somali’s presidential palace, the ministry of foreign affairs and the information minister did not respond to VOA’s requests for comment on Somaliland.

But last June 26, three decades after Somaliland gained independence from Britain, Somali President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed expressed hope for a unified country.

“I ask Allah to realize our dream, which is the return of our unity,” said Mohamed, widely known as Farmaajo. “The people in the North and South need each other. Let us come back to each other and leave out minor interests.”

Relations with Taiwan

Speaking with VOA, Bihi compared Somaliland’s status with that of Taiwan, an East Asian self-governing island that China has considered part of its territory since the Communist takeover in 1949.

“Taiwan and us: We have the same cause. We are two countries that are not recognized,” Bihi said.

Somaliland’s leader said the Taiwanese “are developed economically, successful in education. We need to learn from their experiences on how they maneuvered.”

Somaliland and Taiwan established diplomatic relations in July 2020. At the time, Taiwan’s foreign ministry said of the agreement to establish good relations: “We’re thousands of miles apart but share a deep-seated love of freedom & democracy.”

Somalia and China, which has veto power on the U.N. Security Council, condemned the move.

But Bihi said Somaliland-Taiwanese ties were not meant to antagonize any other government.

China has “no right to get angry,” he said. “We are an independent country, and we can establish relations with anyone we want.

“We are ready to have good relations with China,” Bihi said of Somaliland. “China needs us, we need them. We would like to have good relations. We don’t harbor ill will toward them, and we hope it’s the same on their side.”

Source: Voice of America

WASHINGTON — Political analysts say South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has undercut his own utility as a potential mediator of the war in Ukraine with a controversial suggestion that NATO’s own actions are to blame for Russia’s invasion of its western neighbor.

Ramaphosa has said he prefers negotiations over weapons or economic sanctions, in reference to sanctions piled on Russia by the United States and Western allies in the aftermath of the invasion, now in its fourth week.

“The war could have been avoided if NATO had heeded the warnings from amongst its own leaders and officials over the years that its eastward expansion would lead to greater, not less, instability in the region,” Ramaphosa told parliament last Thursday.

But he added that South Africa “cannot condone the use of force and violation of international law.”

The South African president said South Africa had been asked to mediate in the conflict, but he did not mention who requested the intervention.

University of Western Australia analyst Dr. Muhammad Dan Suleiman told VOA that Ramaphosa’s “outrageous” comment is “more like stoking the fire of conflict (and) projecting a paradigm of war rather than peace.” He said the comment undercuts any possibility for Ramaphosa to mediate peace talks between Russia and Ukraine.

Longtime allies

Africa’s most industrialized nation has long-standing relations with the Kremlin dating back to the 1960s. During South Africa’s apartheid regime, the Soviet Union backed anti-apartheid freedom fighters.

After majority control came to South Africa in 1994, politicians, including those of the ruling African National Congress, maintained ties with Moscow, which observers say makes it no surprise that South Africa has not condemned Russia’s invasion.

Suleiman said there is no historical reason that gratitude for Soviet support during the apartheid era should translate to a defense of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.

”For whatever reason, (Ramaphosa) seems to be equating Russia to the Soviet Union. And that is not true, because Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union. And so, whatever help the Soviet Union gave to the ANC during apartheid also had the contribution of Ukraine,” Suleiman said.

Prince Mashele, executive director at the Center for Politics and Research in Pretoria, said Ramaphosa’s position doesn’t reflect the current thinking of most South Africans.

”You can’t have a foreign policy that is frozen in the past. Foreign policy has to be dynamic. If (Ramaphosa) had a flexible policy, he would appreciate that the Russia of today is not the Russia of yesteryear.”

Mashele told VOA, “Ramaphosa is trapped by his own political party, the ANC, and so, the position he articulates doesn’t reflect his own personal preference. In the ANC, there are relics of the old world aligned with the Communist Party of South Africa and (are) still active,” Mashele said.

Mashele disagrees with some analysts’ assertions that Black South Africans in 2022 continue to look to Moscow for support.

”I am Black. I come from Black communities. The majority of Black South Africans are actually inspired by the West. Their culture, mannerisms, are an extension of the West, in terms of thinking.”

He added, ”Black South Africans don’t even wish to visit Moscow. They wish to visit New York, or Dubai in the East, or Europe. And so, the position that is articulated by Ramaphosa on behalf of South Africans doesn’t reflect the thinking of Black people. It only represents the thinking of a political clique in the ANC.”

Source: Voice of America

Shanghai, Not a single country managed to meet the World Health Organization’s (WHO) air quality standard in 2021, a survey of pollution data in 6,475 cities showed on Tuesday, and smog even rebounded in some regions after a COVID-related dip.

The WHO recommends that average annual readings of small and hazardous airborne particles known as PM2.5 should be no more than 5 micrograms per cubic metre after changing its guidelines last year, saying that even low concentrations caused significant health risks, according to Reuters.

But only 3.4% of the surveyed cities met the standard in 2021, according to data complied by IQAir, a Swiss pollution technology company that monitors air quality. As many as 93 cities saw PM2.5 levels at 10 times the recommended level.

“There are a lot of countries that are making big strides in reduction,” said Christi Schroeder, air quality science manager with IQAir. “China started with some very big numbers and they are continuing to decrease over time. But there are also places in the world where it is getting significantly worse.”

India’s overall pollution levels worsened in 2021 and New Delhi remained the world’s most polluted capital, the data showed. Bangladesh was the most polluted country, also unchanged from the previous year, while Chad ranked second after the African country’s data was included for the first time.

China, which has been waging war on pollution since 2014, fell to 22nd in the PM2.5 rankings in 2021, down from 14th place a year earlier, with average readings improving slightly over the year to 32.6 micrograms, IQAir said.

Hotan in the northwestern region of Xinjiang was China’s worst performing city, with average PM2.5 readings of more than 100 micrograms, largely caused by sandstorms.

It fell to third on the list of the world’s most polluted cities after being overtaken by Bhiwadi and Ghaziabad, both in India.

Source: Nam News Network