Word: drought
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...predicament has not been caused by war or dictatorship. The poor, landlocked nation, whose population has doubled over the past quarter-century, is primarily a victim of its own geography. Situated in the Sahel, a dry, scrubby area along the southern edge of the Sahara that is vulnerable to drought, Niger endured a lack of seasonal rains last year followed by a devastating plague of locusts that destroyed most of the crops in the region. Add the food shortages in neighboring Burkina Faso, Mali and Mauritania, and the WFP says more than 4 million people in the Sahel need help...
...Severe drought in southern Europe this summer is taking a heavy toll on farmers in Spain, Portugal and parts of France and Italy. With rainfall levels far below normal, many crops, from wheat to lettuce, are suffering. Water is now officially rationed in two-thirds of France and much of Spain; some Spanish provinces have even closed or restricted swimming pools and public fountains. The European Commission estimates that grain production will drop by about 28 million tons, or about 10%, in the four countries, with output of some types of wheat down by 25%. Olive and vegetable growers...
...hungry. "Whole families are suffering because of a desperate shortage of food, which has forced them to eat just one meal a day of maize, leaves or wild fruits," wfp's executive director James Morris said last week. Niger has been here before. Between 1968 and 1973 a severe drought across the Sahel killed as many as a quarter of a million people. In The Fate of Africa, an excellent new history of the continent since independence, writer Martin Meredith explains that drought "was only one aspect of the problem." Rapid population growth had forced peasants northward into pastoral areas...
...much of southern Europe, desiccated by one of the worst droughts of the last 60 years, wildfires are raging - and tempers are rising. All of Portugal, where fires are consuming an estimated 1,000 hectares a day, has been declared a severe drought zone. Spain, where rainfall in the first half of the year was 35% below average, is still in a political clinch over a July 16 blaze that killed 11 firefighters; the opposition Popular Party claims the Socialist government didn't act quickly enough to bring the situation under control. Such political battles could intensify, since experts warn...
...week, the Prime Minister showered various sectors with pecuniary perks, including a 5% civil-service pay hike, a tax cut for businesses, $500 million in loans for rural villages, and a promise to increase the minimum wage. Critics contend that these policies will make little difference. "When you have drought, bird flu, stagnating tourism, decelerating growth in exports and a ballooning oil-import bill," says Chris Baker, co-author of Thaksin: The Business of Politics in Thailand, "I can't see how a small income stimulus is going to do anything." Thaksin's political rivals saw defensiveness in his actions...