By FRANCES D'EMILIO, Associated Press Writer
ROME - A U.N. food aid agency said Friday the response to its appeal for money to help meet soaring fuel and food costs went beyond what it had hoped to collect, saying $500 million from Saudi Arabia means it won't have to cut rations.
The Rome-based World Food Program, which operates the world's largest humanitarian program, had set out to raise $755 million from countries so that it could continue to carry outs its activities without cutting rations.
A total of 32 countries gave $960 million, including Thursday's donation from the world's largest oil producer.
"We turned to the world to help the hungry and the world has been generous," said WFP executive director Josette Sheeran in a statement announcing the donations.
The donations mean the agency will have roughly $200 million left over to be used for other urgent needs, the WFP said.
"The Saudi donation will help keep many people from dying, others from slipping into malnutrition and disease, and will even help to stave off civil unrest" over the food prices, Sheeran said.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon "warmly welcomes the offer of the landmark contribution" from Saudi Arabia, U.N. deputy spokeswoman Marie Okabe said in New York.
According to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, Saudi Arabia produces about 9 million barrels of oil a day. Oil prices have now topped $130 a barrel. However these countries have to pay more for their Imports of food grains and other products due to a considerable weakning of the dollar against other currencies which makes their Imports very expensive cutting into their profits deeply.
The WFP describes higher food prices as its biggest challenge ever and estimates the rising prices are pushing 130 million people into hunger.
Ban had said he would lead a top-level task force to tackle the food crisis.
He warned last month that the rapidly escalating global food crisis has reached emergency proportions and threatens to wipe out seven years of progress in the fight against global poverty.
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Associated Press writer Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080523/ap_on_re_eu/un_food_money_appeal;_ylt=AqF07CZE9aj68uRzbZyXp5BvaA8F
This book is a must reading for all (Americans, Palestinians, and Israelis). Many still wrongly believe that the Palestinians left their homes and country on their accord, or were told to do so by Arab leaders. Pappe's book clearly demonstrates that ethnic cleansing (a war crime) did indeed take place.
"The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine" fully documents what really happened in Palestine before Israel became a state in 1948. Ilan Pappe is an Israeli historian at Haifa University. Most of his research is based on Hebrew books, documents and sources.
As I was reading about the cleansing of West Jerusalem (especially, the neighborhood of Qatamon, page 99), I had tears in my eyes because I painfully remembered that day in 1948 when our home was bombed (at night) by the Jewish Hagana terrorist group.
Ilan Pappe quotes this sentence from Itzhak Levy, the head of the Hagana:
"While the cleansing of Qatamon went on, pillage and robbery began. Soldiers and citizens took part in it. They broke into houses and took from them furniture, clothing, electric equipment and food."
Source: Itzhak Levy, "Jerusalem in the War of Independence", Tel Aviv, 1986, in Hebrew, page 219.
Our home, where I was born and raised, was one of those houses described by Itzhak Levy, head of the Hagana.
Worse yet, the ethnic cleansing is still going on today.
F. Muna (California)
