Day: July 13, 2023

And Let The World Go Hungry

The news has been released that the world has 700 million hungry people and yet in the same time military spending reached a new all-time record of Total global military expenditure increased by 3.7 per cent in real terms in 2022, to reach a new high of $2240 billion.

But let’s look at the new hunger stats….

The number of humans going hungry stood at an estimated 735 million in 2022, an increase of 122 million people since 2019. That roughly 20% jump is being attributed to the COVID pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, per a new report issued by the Food and Agriculture Organization and four additional UN bodies on Wednesday, reports the Guardian. The 2023 edition of the annual State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World report tracks the fluctuations over that three-year period, reporting 7.9% of the world’s population faced chronic hunger in 2019. That figure hit 9.3% in 2021 and stood at 9.2% in 2022. “No progress was made on food insecurity at the global level” in 2022, the report points out.

A standout paragraph from the report’s executive summary: “The economic recovery from the pandemic helped to stem the rising tide of hunger at least at the global level. However, the positive effect could have been even larger without the countervailing winds caused by the global repercussions of the war in Ukraine and rising prices of food, agricultural inputs and energy, together with other drivers of food insecurity such as conflicts and weather-related events.”

The report notes that hunger is not spread across the world equally: The portion of the population facing hunger stands at almost 20% in Africa, compared to 8.5% in Asia, 6.5% in Latin America and the Caribbean, and 7% in Oceania. Current projections put the number of chronically undernourished people at nearly 600 million in 2030. That figure is about 119 million people higher than it would have been had neither the pandemic nor the war in Ukraine happened, and makes clear “the immense challenge of achieving the [Sustainable Development Goal] target to eradicate hunger.”

“There are rays of hope,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres said upon the release of the report. “Some regions are on track to achieve some 2030 nutrition targets. But overall, we need an intense and immediate global effort … we must build resilience against the crises and shocks that drive food insecurity-from conflict to climate.” Meanwhile, the AP reports on mounting concerns that Russia will not extend the UN-brokered deal that has been in place since last summer and has allowed grain to be exported from Ukraine to developing nations that rely on it. The Black Sea Grain Initiative is up for its fourth renewal Monday; in the case of the last two renewals, Russia made similar threats before permitting two-month extensions.

I think it is a crying damn shame that bullets are a priority over food or that food is being used as a weapon.

Another shame is that we live in an uncaring world ruled by ‘influencers’ on the inter web…a they determine what we care about….how sad is that?

Enough said.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Ukraine Aid Oversight

Since the US began dumping millions of dollars into Ukraine I have been concerned that there was no oversight on how it the cash was spent or the weapons used….and it seems daily that we, the US, send more cash and stuff to Ukraine…..when will there be any oversight?

If it is up to the White House there will be no oversight at all.

The Joe Biden administration has come out in opposition to Congress creating an inspector general’s office to oversee weapons transfers to the Ukrainian government. 

The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) includes a provision that will create an inspector general for the proxy war in Ukraine modeled after the Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction (SIGAR). 

SIGAR John Sopko detailed the rampant American failures during the Afghan War for years. His quarterly reports routinely embarrassed American officials who tried to portray the situation in Afghanistan as improving. 

Sopko has warned that an inspector general’s official for the Ukraine war needed to be established to prevent a repeat of the situation American aid created in Afghanistan, which saw massive corruption. “There is an understandable desire amid a crisis to focus on getting money out the door and to worry about oversight later, but too often that creates more problems than it solves,” he wrote in a report submitted to Congress earlier this year. “Given the ongoing conflict and the unprecedented volume of weapons being transferred to Ukraine, the risk that some equipment ends up on the black market or in the wrong hands is likely unavoidable.”

Sopko continued, “You’re bound to get corrupt elements of not only the Ukrainian or the host government, but also of US government contractors or other third party contractors to try to steal the money. There’s just so much money going in, and it’s hard to keep track of.”

https://libertarianinstitute.org/news/white-house-looks-to-prevent-oversight-of-ukraine-aid/

Ask yourself why would the White House oppose any form of oversight?

Apparently someone somewhere has something to hide from the American people, whose money is being used to finance yet another proxy war that will accomplish nothing in the grand scheme of international relations.

Again it amazes me that some Americans go on and on about those ‘lay abouts’ on social programs and have no thoughts about wasted money elsewhere.

Social program fraud is tracked down and punished….can we say that about the fraud in Ukraine?

Do you think the American taxpayer deserves to know where their money is being spent or wasted?

Just wondering.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”