Global Food Shortage: U.N. Chief Guterres Warns of Looming ‘Catastrophe’
The world faces the prospect of a mass starvation “catastrophe” driven by an unprecedented food shortage, U.N. chief Antonio Guterres warned Friday.

The world faces the prospect of a mass starvation “catastrophe” driven by an unprecedented food shortage, U.N. chief Antonio Guterres warned Friday.
The Taliban’s defense ministry on Sunday claimed the “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan” has amassed a standing army of over 130,000 troops with hopes to bring that number up to 150,000.
North Korean state television aired a “documentary” on Tuesday called “2021: A Great Victorious Year” that claimed dictator Kim Jong-un lost a remarkable amount of weight because he was suffering so much for the people that “his body completely withered away.”
Some Afghans starving amid Afghanistan’s dire economic fallout — a direct byproduct of the Taliban’s seizure of the country’s government last August — have been forced to sell their “children and kidneys” in desperate bids to earn money for food, Sky News reported Friday.
Residents of the Chinese city of Xi’an took to social media on Thursday to plead for help, as they are running out of food and other necessities under a strict coronavirus lockdown order. Imprisoned citizens furiously accused local officials of being dangerously unprepared for the lockdown.
The Iran-backed Houthi insurgents of Yemen, whose classification as terrorists was revoked by President Joe Biden in the early days of his administration, are closing in on the strategically vital city of Marib and its surrounding oil fields, leaving death, disease, and starvation in their wake.
A Venezuelan human rights non-governmental organization found in a national poll that over 90 percent of people living in the country were food insecure, the office of President Juan Guaidó noted Sunday.
China’s communist rubber-stamp legislature, the National People’s Congress (NPC), introduced a bill Tuesday that would mandate a government war against “food waste” that includes ordering guests at weddings and other public events to eat less.
An overwhelming number of Venezuelans are more afraid of the impact of the Chinese coronavirus on their country than running out of food, according to Venezuelan pollster Meganálisis’ April survey.
Chinese officials announced the first confirmed coronavirus cases among the oppressed Uyghur Muslims of Xinjiang province last week.
The conservative government of Bolivia published an audio file on Wednesday, allegedly of a conversation between a socialist activist and former President Evo Morales in which the latter ordered him to ensure that socialist rioters prevented food and basic goods from getting to the nation’s cities.
The Trump administration on Thursday ordered the State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to freeze between $2 billion and $4 billion in aid authorized by Congress during the 2018 and 2019 fiscal years.
North Korea launched at least one “projectile” from the vicinity of a missile base on Thursday, apparently a drill or test launch that ended with the weapon crashing into the Sea of Japan.
Iran-allied Shiite Houthi rebels in Yemen are preventing aid workers from accessing aid for millions of Yemenis, putting the food “at risk of rotting” while an estimated 20 million people in the country find themselves on the brink of starvation, the United Nations warned Monday.
A staggering 70 percent of the population in Yemen — 20 million people — are facing acute food insecurity raging from minimal to catastrophic levels, marking a 15 percent increase from last year, the United Nations humanitarian chief revealed on Monday, echoing a recent inter-agency report issued by the international body’s aid divisions.
The Nigerian government this week reportedly dismissed as “fake news” claims that deplorable conditions have driven soldiers deployed to the northeastern part of the African country to combat Boko Haram jihadists to beg for food.
Starving Venezuelans fleeing across the border to Brazil have become a common sight around the dumpsters of the country’s biggest border cities, sending their children to find edible garbage to survive. The images, mirroring the reality in their home country, have triggered a backlash among the local population, Brazilian outlet Globo reported on Wednesday.
The New York Times published a major report on starvation under Nicolás Maduro’s socialist dictatorship this weekend after repeatedly taking huge sums of cash from the regime to publish their anti-American propaganda.
A video emerged Sunday of Venezuelan children rummaging through a garbage truck for food in the state of Miranda amid the country’s ongoing humanitarian and political crisis.
Police in Utah said the parents of a toddler who died of abuse and starvation tortured the girl by waving food just out of her reach. The parents allegedly also used makeup to try to hide bruises and signs of abuse.
“Turns Out North Korea’s Economy Is Actually Doing Pretty Well,” the headline at Vox proclaims. The bulk of the article offers nothing to support this assertion.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro – the man who reduced his people to giving away their children to avoid starvation – promises there will be “surprises” in his relationship with “Comrade Trump,” whom he lauded for offering Venezuela food “at a good price.”
A study finds that more than 2.4 million Venezuelans resort to eating garbage to survive, as video of this phenomenon surfaces – Venezuelans patiently waiting for markets to throw away their rotted produce and dig for anything remotely edible.
A jury took just two hours to sentence a Texas mom to 99 years for failing to seek medical care for her five-year-old step-son. The boy had been beaten and weighed just 38 pounds when he died.
The city of Deir Ezzor in eastern Syria, scene of a recent mass abduction by the Islamic State, looks to be a decisive battle between ISIS and the Syrian army in the eastern region of the country—and there are indications ISIS is winning.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon declared the use of man-made famine in Syria to be a “war crime” on Thursday. He described “all sides, including the Syrian government” as “committing this and other atrocious acts prohibited under international humanitarian law.”
Less than two weeks after imposing a nationwide ban on big game hunting in response to the killing of the famous Cecil the lion, Zimbabwe has already lifted the ban, allowing hunters to continue killing exotic game.
Nearly 80% of Yemen’s civilian population is dependent on humanitarian aid for food and water, while six million are believed to be suffering “severe” hunger, and up to 8,000 people may have contracted Dengue fever. This is the dire portrait of a war-torn nation the United Nations presented this week, as fighting between Shiite Houthi rebels and supporters of Sunni President Hadi and Saudi Arabia continue to struggle for power.
The difficulty of life under the dominion of a psychopathic jihad state is highlighted by a Foreign Policy article cheekily entitled “Death to the Infidel Chicken!” ISIS has been busy burning boxes of chicken because the food is supposedly impure from their religious standards, while ten million hungry people watch. (For the record, the food was certified halal, i.e. compliant with Islamic dietary restrictions).