Ebola threatens food security in West Africa: FAO | Reuters

By Isla Binnie and Emma Farge ROME/DAKAR Tue Sep 2, 2014 2:14pm EDT

Health workers wearing protective clothing prepare themselves before to carrying an abandoned dead body presenting with Ebola symptoms at Duwala market in Monrovia August 17, 2014.  Credit: Reuters/2Tango

(Reuters) – The world’s worst Ebola epidemic has endangered harvests and sent food prices soaring in West Africa, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said on Tuesday, warning the problem would intensify in coming months.

The FAO issued a special alert for Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, the three countries most affected by the outbreak, which has killed at least 1,550 people since the virus was detected in the remote jungles of southeastern Guinea in March.

Restrictions on people’s movements and the establishment of quarantine zones to contain the spread of the hemorrhagic fever have led to panic buying, food shortages and price hikes in countries ill-prepared to absorb the shock.

“In the three countries severely affected by Ebola, the agriculture and food security situation is really deteriorating,” said Vincent Martin, head of an FAO unit in Dakar that is coordinating the agency’s response.

….(read more).

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FAO – News Article: West Africa: Ebola outbreak puts harvests at risk, sends food prices shooting up

Agriculture in affected countries under significant strain, says new FAO special alert

An empty street market in Monrovia’s West Point district, 20 August 2014.

2 September 2014, Rome – Disruptions in food trade and marketing in the three West African countries most affected by Ebola have made food increasingly expensive and hard to come by, while labor shortages are putting the upcoming harvest season at serious risk, FAO warned today.

In Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, quarantine zones and restrictions on people’s movement aimed at combating the spread of the virus, although necessary, have seriously curtailed the movement and marketing of food. This has lead to panic buying, food shortages and significant food price hikes on some commodities, especially in urban centers, according to a special alert issued today by FAO’s Global Information and Early Warning System (GIEWS).

At the same time, the main harvest season for two key crops – rice and maize – is just weeks away. Labor shortages on farms due to movement restrictions and migration to other areas will seriously impact farm production, jeopardizing the food security of large numbers of people, the alert says.

…(read more).

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Ebola Patient Flees Clinic In Search For Food

Crowds followed the escaped ebola patient at a distance

Chaotic scenes as an infected man wanders into a Monrovia market to look for food are captured on video.

6:17pm UK, Tuesday 02 September 2014

Video has emerged of Liberian ebola clinic workers dressed in contamination suits chasing an escaped patient through the streets after he left a treatment centre to visit a market.

There were chaotic scenes as crowds followed infected man, who was wearing a wristband to show he had tested positive for the disease, and some stallholders argued with him as he approached.

The patient escaped from Monrovia’s Elwa hospital, which last month was so crowded with cases of the deadly disease that it had to turn people away.

One woman at the scene said: “The patients are hungry, they are starving. No food, no water.

“The government needs to do more. Let Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf [the President of Liberia] do more.”

Onlookers cheered as health workers arrived in their protective outfits and try to convince the patient to give himself up.

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Northern Defense: Russian Navy completes successful rocket launches

RT

Published on Sep 14, 2014

Submarine, destroyer and an on shore Missile launcher from the Northern Fleet of the Russian Navy have made successful test firing of their rockets. The targets located at distances of 60 – 400 km were all successful.

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Paul Roberts: The End of Food

Cooking Up a Story

Uploaded on Jul 13, 2009

For more Stories & Food News: http://cookingupastory.com
Paul Roberts, veteran print journalist, and author of The End of Food, and The End of Oil, speaks at the first ever, Organicology conference, in Portland, Oregon. The story he tells here is a cautionary tale. Modern science has created the industrial agriculture revolution, producing enormous benefits for society. Though over time, many of these very same benefits: lower costs of production, greater production yields, and greater efficiency through increased economies of scale, have led to serious systemic problems that threaten the entire agricultural system, perhaps even our planet.

Check out our new series:
Food Farmer Earth – a journey of wide discovery about our food
http://www.youtube.com/ffe

Cooking Up a Story – Bringing the people behind our food to life
http://cookingupastory.com

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Volcanic Eruption in Iceland, September 2014 – Rare Footage

Kristinn Ingi Pétursson

Published on Sep 4, 2014

The ongoing volcanic eruption in Holuhraun has already become the largest lava eruption in Iceland since the 19th century, according to volcanologist Ármann Höskuldsson. More lava has been emitted than in the largest lava eruption of the 20th century, Krafla in 1984.

Þann 3. september 2014 fór ég sem myndasmiður fyrir fréttamiðil norðan heiða að gosstöðvunum norðan Dyngjujökuls. Ég hafði komið á þetta svæði á fjórða tug skipta í sumar og virkilega furðulegt að hafa eldgos í bakgarðinum hjá sér ef svo má segja. Þegar kyrrmyndatöku fyrir fréttamiðilinn var lokið tók ég þetta myndband fyrir sjálfan mig og vini til minja, einskonar “selfí”. Nú hugsa ég að margir geti verið gramir sem ekki hafa fengið leyfi til að fara inn á svæðið, og finnist heldur fúlt að sjá mig taka þetta „selfí“ myndband. Fann vel fyrir hættunni og náði góðum myndum fyrir fréttamiðilinn áður en ég tók þetta myndband sem áður segir, til minja fyrir sjálfan mig og vini. Ég sé eftir að hafa ekki klippt það af örlítið meiri metnaði og haft hljóðnema með sokk, mig bara óraði ekki fyrir að þetta myndband yrði svo vinsælt. Hver veit nema maður geri aðra útgáfu sem inniheldur ekki andlitið á mér og klippt og unnið í heldur betri gæðum. Þangað til þá er þetta bara góðverk að sýna heiminum svona gullfallegt andlit 🙂

September 13: For some reason, a few people seem to think that the closings around Holuhraun Lava don’t apply to them. People without proper authorization, which are issued to e.g. scientists and sometimes journalist, have been arrested around the Holuhraun eruption.
Víðir Reynisson, Department Manager at the Department of Civil Protection stresses the importance of respecting the closings. They are for your own good.

September 8: The lava-field from the Holuhraun erup­tion is now 18.6 square kilo­me­ters, about a third of the size of Man­hat­tan, and has al­ready reached the glacial river Jökulsá á Fjöl­lum.

The field stretches 14.5 kilo­me­ters from end to end and has stretched the north­east by 420 me­ters since yes­ter­day af­ter­noon.

September 6: To date, the Bardarbunga eruption has produced lava flows and fountains—some reaching 200 meters, or 650 feet.

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Volcano Eruption in Papua New Guinea

bacobjee

Published on Sep 5, 2014

The eruption of Mount Tavurvur volcano on August 29th, 2014. Captured by Phil McNamara.

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Back to the Dark Ages

National Geographic

Published on Sep 13, 2014

Doomsday preppers Chuck Vessey, Lisa Roulette, and Tom and Beth Tailer have fears ranging from an electromagnetic pulse taking out the power grid to catastrophic climate change.

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Live Free or Die: Amelia

National Geographic

Published on Sep 14, 2014

Amelia lives with her husband, Tony, on a piece of land in the Appalachian Mountains they’re turning into a sustainable homestead. LIVE FREE OR DIE PREMIERES TUE SEP 30 at 10P.

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Every President in the Last Quarter-Century Has Announced the Bombing of Iraq on Live TV

George H. W. Bush greeting troops in Saudi Arabia in 1990. (photo: George Bush Presidential Library and Museum)

By Philip Gourevitch, The New Yorker

14 September 14

“Just two hours ago, allied air forces began an attack on military targets in Iraq and Kuwait.”

—President George H. W. Bush
January 16, 1991

“Good evening. Earlier today, I ordered America’s armed forces to strike military and security targets in Iraq.”

—President Bill Clinton
December 16, 1998

“My fellow citizens. At this hour, American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger.”

—President George W. Bush
March 19, 2003

“My fellow Americans. Tonight, I want to speak to you about what the United States will do with our friends and allies to degrade and ultimately destroy the terrorist group known as ISIL.”

—President Barack Obama
September 10, 2014

very American President in the past quarter century has now gone on television during prime time to tell the nation and the world that he has decided to bomb Iraq. Last night was Barack Obama’s turn, and it was a vexing performance. This is a President who has been stubbornly dedicated to extricating the United States as much as possible from its post-9/11 wars and resisting—in the absence of any good options for decisive action—being drawn into Syria’s catastrophic civil war. “The greatest responsibility I have as President is to keep the American people safe,” he said, two years ago. “That’s why I ended the war in Iraq.” And he repeated that boast last night, even as he told a very different story, effectively declaring a new war of staggering scope and complexity against forces of the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham, and other enemies, in Iraq and Syria—a war that he described as having no end in sight.

….(read more).

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