http://www.inteldaily.com/?c=148&a=5876
Food riots rock Yemen.
Tanks have been deployed in parts of southern Yemen after a fifth day of angry protests by thousands
of mostly young people. Youth are blocking roads and burning tires, and up to 100 have been
arrested. In al-Dalea, two police station were torched, and military vehicles burned, while riot
police fired into the air and used tanks against street barricades. In response, armed protesters
threw up roadblocks on the main road between the capital, Sanaa, and the port of Aden, halting
traffic.
The unrest started in the Radfan region of al-Dalea province March 30 and spread the next day to the
province of Lahj. President Ali Abdullah Saleh called an emergency meeting of the National Defense
Council on April 3. Al-Dalea residents report that one of at least 14 people wounded had died. The
official Saba news agency said April 2 there were no fatalities.
Rising food prices helped trigger the protests. The price of wheat has doubled since February, while
rice and vegetable oil have gone up 20%. Disaffection in southern Yemen has been long-standing
following the civil war of 1994, in which the south lost its independence. Southerners say a
government amnesty granting former southern soldiers re-admission to the army has not been
fulfilled, and that they are kept out of government jobs.
http://www.gulf-daily-news.com/Story.asp?Article=213606&Sn=WORL&IssueID=31015
Food price rise hitting Arabs hard.
BEIRUT: While Gulf oil producers reap windfall earnings, their poorer cousins elsewhere in the Arab
world are struggling with soaring energy and food bills. Inflation has surged in Gulf countries,
fuelled partly by lavish spending of record oil and gas revenues. This is also spurring demand for
everything from housing to power and water.
Gulf states with currencies pegged to the dollar have also been hit by the global weakness of the US
currency, which is driving inflation by making some imports more expensive. But wrestling with
rising prices is a grimmer business in Arab capitals not cushioned by oil wealth. From Cairo in
Egypt to Sanaa in Yemen, most governments have to weigh the fiscal costs of subsidising fuel and
food against the explosive political risks of social discontent.
Food price rises hit the poor hardest in the Middle East, as in other food-importing developing
countries around the world, but any instability here could ripple far beyond the region.
"Largely because of rising fuel prices, and growing demand from developing economies we are seeing
rapidly declining food stocks and sharply rising prices," said Lodge.
Food prices in Syria have risen 20pc in the last six months, Lodge said. In Yemen the price of wheat
has doubled since February, while rice and vegetable oil have gone up 20pc in two months.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4813b3c4-0250-11dd-9388-000077b07658.html?nclick_check=1
Rice jumps as Africa joins race for supplies.
Rice prices rose more than 10 per cent on Friday to a fresh all-time high as African countries
joined south-east Asian importers in the race to head off social unrest by securing supplies from
the handful of exporters still selling the grain in the international market.
The increase also risks stoking further inflation in emerging countries, which have been suffering
the impact of record oil prices and the rise in price of other agricultural commodities - including
wheat, maize and vegetable oil - in the last year.
India's trade minister, said the government would crack down on hoarding of essential commodities to
keep a lid on food prices. "We will not hesitate to take the strongest possible measures, including
using some of the legal provisions that we have against hoarding,'' he said on Friday.
Toga McIntosh, Liberia's minister of economic affairs, said earlier this week that rice was "always
on the table" in his country. "We are very dependent on imports."
Nigeria, Senegal and Ivory Coast are also among the world's top 10 rice importers.
The Philippines, the world's largest buyer of rice, on Friday said it was doubling the import quota
allotted to private traders to 600,000 tonnes in a bid to boost rapidly dwindling rice stocks after
the government failed to attract enough offers in the past three tenders.
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080403/corn_at_6.html?.v=6
Corn Prices Jump to Record $6 a Bushel, Driving Up Costs for Food, Alternative Energy
NEW YORK (AP) -- Corn prices jumped to a record $6 a bushel Thursday, driven up by an expected
supply shortfall that will only add to Americans' growing grocery bill and further squeeze
struggling ethanol producers.
Corn prices have shot up nearly 30 percent this year amid dwindling stockpiles and surging demand
for the grain used to feed livestock and make alternative fuels including ethanol. Prices are poised
to go even higher after the U.S. government this week predicted that American farmers -- the world's
biggest corn producers -- will plant sharply less of the crop in 2008 compared to last year.
Worldwide demand for corn to feed livestock and to make biofuel is putting enormous pressure on
global supply. And with the U.S. expected to plant less corn, the supply shortage will only worsen.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture projected that farmers will plant 86 million acres of corn in
2008, an 8 percent drop from last year.
Jan Rasmussen