Afghans starving as food prices rise

This video is called Pain at the Mirwais Hospital, Kandahar, Afghanistan (Sept 07). It says about itself:

Afghan doctor explains the lack of medication, food and services available in Kandahar hospital, Afghanistan. While a very malnourished three year old girl sits beside him, suffering tremendous pain.

While in Afghanistan torture in prisons continues; and civilians continue to die in George W. Bush’s war; there are still more deathly threats, as Reuters reports:

No food price relief seen for poor Afghans

Mon Apr 14, 2008 7:06pm BST

By Jonathon Burch

KABUL – Impoverished Afghans struggling with rising wheat prices are not expected to get any relief soon with no sign prices are going to come down, a United Nations official said on Monday.

Top finance and development officials from around the world called in Washington on Sunday for urgent action to stem rising food prices, warning that social unrest will spread unless the cost of basic staples is contained.

Afghanistan is one of the world’s poorest countries with half its 25 million people living below the poverty line.

Wheat prices in Afghanistan have risen by an average of 60 percent over the last year with certain areas seeing a rise of up to 80 percent, the U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) said. …

Anger over high food prices has led to rioting in Haiti [see also here]. There have also been protests in Cameroon, Niger and Burkina Faso in Africa, and in Indonesia and the Philippines.

Corsino, asked if higher wheat prices would provide an incentive for [Afghan] farmers to switch from growing opium to wheat, said the profit from opium was still much higher than that from wheat.

“The problem as I see it, is that the incentive for those engaged in poppy have been so much higher than those engaged in wheat that there would have to be quite a long way to go to bridge that gap,” he said.

Afghanistan is the world’s biggest producer of opium, the raw material for heroin.