Word: ethiopia
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Geldof, who received an honorary knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II for his Band Aid efforts, was back in Ethiopia last week, and his indictment of Mengistu's role in the new famine was harsh and to the point: "I would say that the cardinal responsibility of any government is to feed its own people, and any government refusing to do that is irresponsible...
...tendency toward the grandiose, was widely denounced for spending an estimated $100 million to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the revolution that deposed Emperor Haile Selassie. There are signs he may be curbing his spendthrift ways: in September, when the country was renamed the People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, Mengistu opted for a cocktail party instead of a banquet...
Like much of Africa, Ethiopia has always been subject to ecological disaster. Droughts and famines were reported as early as 253 B.C. In the great drought of 1888, a third of the population is said to have died from malnourishment and disease. This latest calamity is part of a 30-year pattern that has seen the rains repeatedly fail along the Sahel, the wide swath of land that cuts Africa in half just below the Sahara. After the 1984-85 drought, which killed an estimated 2 million people in Africa, there was a brief period of uncommon optimism in Addis...
Worst hit was the far northern province of Eritrea along the Red Sea, where the crop failure exceeded 80%. More than 40% of the harvest was lost in Tigre, 44% in Wollo and 35% in Harar, the Ogaden desert region that juts into Somalia. Altogether, nine of Ethiopia's 14 provinces are suffering food shortages...
...India, for example, is now in the midst of its worst drought in decades, but because it has a food surplus and a relatively organized system for feeding the hungry, few are expected to starve. Usually it is the combination of drought, mismanagement and civil war that brings famine. Ethiopia is afflicted with all three...