Poor starving Africa. If only you had oil or lighter skin.

[sufrommich]

Millions Are Starving in the Horn of Africa, but Nobody's Talking About It.

The United Nations has called the ongoing drought and famine in Somalia the "worst humanitarian disaster" in the world. It's going to get worse in the coming months. Yet a new Pew Research Center study released on Thursday shows that news outlets have barely noticed: "In July and August the food crisis has accounted for just 0.7 percent of the newshole. Year-to-date the crisis registers at just 0.2 percent."

Aid workers say the current famine, which has affected Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia, and Djibouti, "is worse" than the one that hit Somalia in 1992—making it perhaps the most serious food crisis since the famine that devastated Ethiopia in 1985.

The statistics are shocking: In Somalia, at least 29,000 children died of starvation in 90 days. Some 2 million children are malnourished, and another 500,000 children are at great risk of starving to death. Some 12 million people in the region need emergency assistance. The crisis has been exacerbated by the al-Shabaab Islamist insurgent group, which has played a hand in causing the famine by forcing out aid groups and preventing starving Somalis from fleeing the country.

As you read this, you might be thinking, "Huh? There's a famine in Somalia right now?" If you haven't heard about the crisis before, it's because US news coverage has been focusing on other topics—a tabloid scandal, Congress' budget deficit battle, the economy, Middle East revolutions, and, most recently, Hurricane Irene. Some of these are important, attention-worthy stories, but they've drowned out almost any coverage of the famine. That matters: Relief organizations say their fundraising efforts have stalled because the media isn't talking about the famine. The United Nations recently announced that it needs $1.1 billion to adequately respond to the crisis.


http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2011/09/millions-are-starving-horn-africa


24 hours of news, day in and day out, and yet starving Africans barely rates a blink. Shame.

[FLPanhandle]

1. It's well known.

The issue is there is no quick fix to this one.

Over population and climate change means this "drought" isn't going to really end. It's the new normal. Too many people living past the environmental carrying point.

Even the UN says relief efforts will have to be ongoing for the foreseeable future and donations are drying up.

The media has ADD. This story is now what they call "filler" when nothing else is happening.


Edit to add: This environmental carrying capacity is now in Africa, but make no mistake, it's coming to the 1st world too.

[Name removed]

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[izquierdista]

2. Nigeria has oil --

-- and they still have lots of poor people. Maybe not starving, just dying from the oil pollution.

[Moldywart]

3. Somalia has oil...

From 1993: US interests in Somalia
From 2007: http://www.somaliawatch.org/archivejuly/000922601.htm">SOMALIA WATCH

They do not have a government that can protect big oil companies and give them carte blanche to take whatever they want in return for making a few political leaders fabulously wealthy.

[dixiegrrrrl]

5. Good links, thanks.

It is simple. If TPTB wanted to help, they would.
Seems to me we are still waiting for the earthquake aid to take hold in Haiti.

Gee, I wonder if the population of poor, black people has anything to do with no action???