Bangladesh Needs Massive Food Aid

[G_j]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-4381255,00.html

Bangladesh Needs Massive Food Aid

Tuesday August 3, 2004 1:46 PM

By FARID HOSSAIN

Associated Press Writer

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) - Bangladesh will need food aid for 20 million people - or one-seventh of its population - over the next five months because of massive flooding that has destroyed crops, the country's disaster minister said Tuesday.

The worst monsoon rains and flooding in six years have covered 60 percent of this nation of 140 million since June, destroying crops and jobs, said Food and Disaster Management Minister Chowdhury Kamal Ibne Yusouf.

``We are getting international assistance in addition to our own food stocks,'' he said. ``No one will die from starvation.''

The floods have disrupted Bangladesh's $4 billion textile industry, which earns nearly 80 percent of the country's export earnings. The overall flood damage could total $6.7 billion, officials have estimated.

..more..

[truhavoc]

1. We'd help if we actually cared about the humanitarian causes of the world.

With this senario, the ethnic cleansing in the Sudan, and multiple other massive humanitarian missions across the globe how can the media and a section of the american population allow the administration to use humanitarian reasons for the war in Iraq??? :shrug:

[G_j]

2. case in point:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x713051

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0728-03.htm

Published on Wednesday, July 28, 2004 by the lndependent/UK

War in Iraq 'Preventing Efforts to Stop Sudan Genocide'
by Ben Russell

Britain and America's preoccupation with Iraq has blocked international efforts to end genocide in the war-torn Darfur region of Sudan, according to a highly critical report published by a think-tank close to Tony Blair.

The study, to be published today, said that the war in Iraq had prevented effective planning for military intervention which could have bolstered diplomatic efforts to prevent the bloodshed, which has driven more than a million people from their homes.

It warned that discussion on Iraq had prevented the United Nations Security Council discussing the Darfur crisis in May and diverted attention from clear warning signs that started emerging more than a year ago.

The study, which was published by the Foreign Policy Center, a left-of-center think-tank which counts Mr Blair as its patron, said that there was a fatal lack of political resolve to take strong action against the Khartoum government, a key American ally in the war on international terrorism.


..more..