Even as the number of hungry people has been rising, mainly, in Africa by about 6 million a year, food aid is in sharp decline, the Executive Director of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) James T. Morris said today.
Despite the fact that poverty can be seen as a violation of basic human rights, 1.1 billion people, or about a fifth of the world's population, scrape by on less than one dollar a day.
I live next to a monumental rubbish dump, the proud possession of Kolkata (previously Calcutta) Municipal Corporation. I was here at this location in Calcutta long before the dump arrived. But that counts for nothing, of course, and I have too much rubbish of my own to face trying to move out to another, sweeter- smelling location. The Corporation has a fleet of open, aged trucks on to which the night's collection of refuse is loaded with gay abandon by a gang of labourers armed with shovels, some of which, like the trucks & the labourers, have seen much better days. When loaded, the trucks are carefully parked outside my living quarters, allowing all concerned, except, myself, a period for rest and refreshment. Perched on top of the tarpaulin covered loads of garbage, the lorry crews happily consume their life-supporting snacks. Parked conveniently close by is a small three-wheeler van, with a driver and assistant fast asleep, sprawled out across the single seat, lower limbs dangling out on either side. To avoid any mistake on the part of the public, the van is prominently marked Kolkata Corporation Carcass Van. The sleeping gentlemen are patiently waiting for the Corporation garbage collectors to arrive with their little hand-pulled, two-wheeled carts; which may contain animal carcasses as well as a heady selection of garbage. Only rarely is one privileged to see a white painted van with a black cross on the side, which is labeled Dead Body Ambulance.
The negotiations on the draft declaration for the World Summit - which opens on Tuesday - have been nothing short of bizarre. The United States government has fought a relentless battle to dissociate itself from specific obligations regarding international development, and has tried repeatedly to the quash obligations that it has taken on the past. All of this has been taking place at a time when the US itself has become an aid recipient, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
"This growing divide between wealth and poverty . . . is both a challenge to our compassion and a source of instability."
George W. Bush, March 22, 2002
