Famine

Omar Khalifa, a champion middle-distance runner from Sudan, arrived in Athens last night for the start of a tour of 12 European cities to promote a series of running events called Sport Aid that will raise funds for African famine. The project was coordinated by Bob Geldof, the man who conceived and promoted last year's African famine-relief effort, Live Aid, a pair of massive pop-music festivals in Philadelhia and London. To promote Sport Aid, Khalifa will appear in runs of 10 kilometers (6.2 miles)

The Ethiopian famine deepens by the day. Ethiopia gets whatever press is given over to the hungry. But, let's be frank, the Western world is bored by famine. It awoke with a start to Michael Buerk's television depiction of dying children in Ethiopia in October 1984, was held with its nose to the problem by Bob Geldof and Harry Belafonte and then, the hungry fed, switched off. Now, Ethiopia is in the grip of a major famine once again. Press interest is intermittent. Compassion fatigue has set in. If Ethiopia can't get much attention then forget the rest of the world.

MOGADISHU, Somalia - Kaltum Mohamed sits beside a small mound of earth, alone with her thoughts. It is her child's grave - and there are three others like it. Just three weeks ago, Mohamed was the mother of five young children. But the famine that has rocked Somalia has claimed the lives of four of them. Only a daughter remains. The others starved to death before Mohamed's eyes as she and her husband trekked to Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, in search of aid. Thousands of parents are grieving in Somalia and in refugee camps in neighboring countries amid Somalia's worst drought in 60 years.

NAIROBI, Kenya - Thousands of people died needlessly and millions of dollars were wasted because the international community did not respond fast enough to early signs of famine in East Africa, aid agencies said Wednesday, while warning of a new hunger crisis in West Africa. Most rich donor nations waited until the crisis in the Horn of Africa was in full swing before donating a substantial amount of money, according to the report by the aid groups Oxfam and Save the Children. A food shortage had been predicted as early as August 2010, but most donors did not respond until famine was declared in parts of Somalia in July 2011.

WASHINGTON - Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Thursday described the drought threatening more than 12 million Africans with starvation as a stark reminder of the need to invest in global agriculture and nutrition - Obama administration goals that could be sharply limited if House Republicans get their way. In a speech at the International Food Policy Research Institute, Clinton announced that the United States was providing an additional $17...

As the long line of hungry people snaked up the mountain for food, it passed a reminder of the last group that trudged through Alamata, desperate and starved. There, on the flat, parched plains of northern Ethiopia, lay mound after mound of dirt. Below each mound are buried the remains of thousands of famine victims who died here two years ago on their way to find food. Tafari Wassen, who saw people die of hunger and disease here in 1984 and 1985, looked now at able-bodied men and women hiking up the mountain.

Cyrus Maleki Copeland of St. Davids said he never worked harder on anything in his life than he did on this summer's "Tips for Ethiopia" project. During the two-day program, all waiters, waitresses and bus people at hundreds of area restaurants set aside 10 percent of their tips, to be forwarded by UNICEF to Ethiopia and Sudan. Citizens of those famine-plagued African countries are suffering from starvation, dehydration and disease. Copeland conceived his idea in February 1987 and carried it out at the restaurant where he was working.

Wretched, starved and desperate, the refugees from the tragic Irish potato famine struck the American shores like the flotsam of a hellish sea. In the confusion of their arrival, record-keeping barely existed. The Irish refugees stumbled from the often crowded, filthy ships after spending four to six weeks on the heaving ocean and were soon lost in the antic weft of East Coast port cities. But there was one place at which their names were written down - in the manifests of the ships that transported them to the New World.

The old patriarch Gebre Hailu led his people down the mountain. There was no food left in the village called Shemaye, a dry patch of rocky gray earth in the northern Ethiopian highlands. Everyone had sold their goats and oxen for money to buy food. Some had torn down their huts for firewood. Once again, the time had come to trek down to Wukro for donated food. "Even last time, we had some rain," Gebre said of the 1984-85 drought and famine that killed his brother and sister.

It dawned on the industrialized nations two years ago that something was going terribly wrong in Africa. That was when starving babies forced themselves into the consciousness of a developed world awash in surplus food, while 35 million people in 20 African countries were at risk of starvation due to drought. Since then, rains have come and the immediate threat of catastrophe has passed. But the specter of famine in the late 20th century has pushed international agencies to look more closely at why Africa is so vulnerable, and to assess the chances of even worse disasters in the near future.

NAIROBI, Kenya - Thousands of people died needlessly and millions of dollars were wasted because the international community did not respond fast enough to early signs of famine in East Africa, aid agencies said Wednesday, while warning of a new hunger crisis in West Africa. Most rich donor nations waited until the crisis in the Horn of Africa was in full swing before donating a substantial amount of money, according to the report by the aid groups Oxfam and Save the Children. A food shortage had been predicted as early as August 2010, but most donors did not respond until famine was declared in parts of Somalia in July 2011.

With a degree in economics, Yevgeniy Levich, 23, may understand better than most why so many people his age are out of work. He blames the lack of jobs on a myriad of reasons: the lack of regulation in banking that led to this economic crisis; a failed theory that lowering taxes leads to investment; a proposal for infrastructure jobs that doesn't do much for someone who doesn't work with his hands - that's all the macro stuff. Microeconomics is this: Levich, a Central High School graduate with degrees in economics and journalism from New York University, is still living with his parents in Northeast Philadelphia and hoping that he'll land a job as a nightclub office assistant.

Judge: Chirac can skip his trial PARIS - Former French President Jacques Chirac won't have to attend his long-awaited corruption trial, a judge ruled Monday, after Chirac's lawyers said the 78-year-old was suffering severe memory lapses. Judge Dominique Pauthe said he took into account a written appeal and medical report sent by Chirac's defense team and decided the trial would be allowed to go ahead without the former president in court. "Jacques Chirac will thus be judged in his absence," Pauthe said.

What do you do with a Somalia? Americans have wanted to have as little to do as possible with the East African nation ever since 19 U.S. soldiers were killed in the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu, made famous in the 2001 movie Black Hawk Down , which was based on a book by former Inquirer reporter Mark Bowden. But Somalia won't let this country, or any other, it seems, forget that it is still here. It has become the very definition of anarchy, with only a semblance of a government that can do little to control the terrorists, pirates, and warlords who make life in the country miserable.

By Abdi Ismail Samatar The devastating famine in Somalia is not a natural phenomenon, but a man-made one. Political and military intervention over the last decade made the Somali people extremely vulnerable. The drought simply pushed them over the edge. The culprits are the U.S. war on terror, the al-Shabab terrorist group, Somalia's transitional federal government, Ethiopia's invasion of Somalia, and, finally, the United Nations. The combined activities of these actors led to the exhaustion of local food resources and delayed or denied assistance from outside until massive starvation was reported.

WASHINGTON - Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Thursday described the drought threatening more than 12 million Africans with starvation as a stark reminder of the need to invest in global agriculture and nutrition - Obama administration goals that could be sharply limited if House Republicans get their way. In a speech at the International Food Policy Research Institute, Clinton announced that the United States was providing an additional $17...

DADAAB, Kenya - Hundreds of thousands of Somali children could die in East Africa's famine unless more help arrives, a top U.S. official warned Monday in the starkest death-toll prediction yet. To highlight the crisis, the wife of Vice President Biden visited a refugee camp filled with hungry Somalis. Jill Biden is the highest-profile U.S. visitor to East Africa since the number of refugees coming across the Somali border dramatically increased in July. She said she wanted to raise awareness and persuade donors to give more.

MOGADISHU, Somalia - A World Food Program handout of corn rations to Somalis trying to survive a famine turned deadly Friday after government troops opened fire, killing at least seven, witnesses said. Residents of Mogadishu's largest famine refugee camp accused government soldiers of starting the chaos by trying to steal some of the 290 tons of dry rations that aid workers were trying to distribute. Then refugees joined in the scramble, prompting soldiers to open fire, witnesses said.

MOGADISHU, Somalia - Kaltum Mohamed sits beside a small mound of earth, alone with her thoughts. It is her child's grave - and there are three others like it. Just three weeks ago, Mohamed was the mother of five young children. But the famine that has rocked Somalia has claimed the lives of four of them. Only a daughter remains. The others starved to death before Mohamed's eyes as she and her husband trekked to Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, in search of aid. Thousands of parents are grieving in Somalia and in refugee camps in neighboring countries amid Somalia's worst drought in 60 years.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - As hunger in the Horn of Africa dramatically worsens, the United Nations on Wednesday added three new regions of Somalia to the list of areas it says are stricken by famine. More than 12 million are facing starvation, with children particularly vulnerable. The United Nations last month declared that two regions of Somalia were suffering from famine, and it said Wednesday that the famine was likely to spread across most of Somalia in the coming months, as well as to Kenya, Uganda, and Ethiopia.