famine

This article previously appeared on Russian Insider (4/7/15) and Global Research (11/7/15). See also: War without mercy in Yemen (8/7/15) and other articles about Yemen on PressTV and candobetter.

No "We are the children"
for the children of Yemen

80 percent of people in the Arab world's poorest country are in danger of starving to death under a US-backed and US-enabled blockade and bombing campaign.

Have the CNN, BBC, NBC, Fox, Sky, etc told you about that?

Obviously news that doesn't directly touch on Russia. However, obviously an enormously important one – this is the biggest humanitarian disaster in the world right now – but it's getting barely any attention because the US is contributing to it in a major way. (The Saudi campaign in Yemen wouldn't be possible without American diplomatic, intelligence and logistics backing.)

Another interesting (albeit in the light of 20 million lives in danger far less key) angle is that despite repeatedly causing such tragedies (260,000 people died in 2010-12 Somalia famine after a sustained US-Ethiopian military intervention there made an even greater mess of that country and up to a million who died in the 1990s due to sanctions on Iraq passed after the US destroyed chunks of the country's civilian infrastructure) the US still thinks it can take the moral high ground against Russia.

Preposterous! Even if Russia actually did everything the US accuses it of (and it doesn't) it would be far, far cleaner than the US, which is the world's premier killer today.

Twenty million people in Yemen, the poorest country in the Arab world, are at risk of dying from hunger or thirst. That's 80 percent of the country's population, which according to UN agencies badly needs emergency supplies of food and water, along with fuel and medicine.

This almost unimaginable crisis sounds like something out of a disaster movie. But the cause isn't an earthquake or a tsunami.

The main reason for all this suffering is months of merciless bombardment and blockade led by the richest Arab countries – Saudi Arabia and its neighboring petro-princedoms – and backed by the United States. Washington's providing the attackers with technical assistance, intelligence, and top-shelf armaments.

The countries bombing Yemen are targeting a rebel group they claim is a proxy for Iran. The evidence for that is very thin.

In fact, the conflict in Yemen is rooted in internal disputes. Try to stay with me...

In 2011, a nationwide uprising akin to those in Tunisia and Egypt deposed the country's autocratic leader, Ali Abdullah Saleh. There was no democratic election before his successor, the Saudi- and U.S.-backed Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, took over – he ran unopposed. And there was no relief from the terrible poverty, unemployment, and government corruption that brought about the popular revolt.

So a few months ago, a reformist movement and militia called the Houthis – which had launched a handful of rebellions against Saleh in the past – took advantage of widespread discontent to conquer the capital, Sanaa. Hadi fled into exile, and the Saudis started bombing shortly thereafter.

Since then, local militias in central and southern Yemen have fiercely resisted the Houthis and army units still loyal to Saleh, who is now allied with his former foes. Meanwhile, a local franchise of al-Qaeda is fighting everybody.

In short, it's terribly complicated, and the bombs aren't helping.

The Yemenis caught in this crossfire were already thirsty and hungry before the war – unlike their Saudi neighbors, they don't have a lucrative oil supply. Now, with Yemen's borders closed, its airports shut down, and Arab navies enforcing an embargo at sea, the situation is breathtaking in its desperation.

Saudi Arabia and its friends, including the United States, support Hadi. Yet they have no discernible plan for winning beyond reducing Yemen to rubble and besieging civilians in the hope of securing the Houthis' surrender.

The Obama administration probably doesn't believe the Saudis' nonsense about the Houthis and Iran, but it's shown no interest in stopping the war.

In fact, the United States has even announced a full suspension of aid to Yemen for a year, undercutting its occasional murmurs of humanitarian concern. By endorsing this Saudi-led shooting match, Washington may hope to calm the Saudis' nerves about the ongoing nuclear talks with Iran, which Saudi Arabia opposes.

Is that what it's come to, soothing a bully's nerves just because it pumps a lot of oil?

Instead, the Obama administration should withdraw its support for the bombing, lift the blockade, and broker a power-sharing agreement between Yemen's competing factions. For the people of Yemen, it's beyond urgent.

The Malthusian Trap

The principle that there is a perpetual tendency in the race of man to increase beyond the means of subsistence is usually attributed to political economist Thomas Robert Malthus. The Malthusian Trap is the theory that, as population growth is ahead of agricultural growth, there must be a stage at which the food supply is inadequate for feeding the population.

This was originally devised by Malthus in An Essay on the Principle of Population in 1798, arguing that food supply expansion is linear whereas human growth is exponential.

World's richest to blame?

Aid agencies have accused the world's richest countries of "wilful neglect'' in failing to fund appeals to save millions of Africans from famine.

Somalia's neighbour Djibouti yesterday appealed for $US21 million ($A19.5 million) from international donors to help deal with a drought that has left about 120,000 of its 900,000 citizens vulnerable.

A human tragedy

Nearly 11 million people are at risk of starvation in the Horn of Africa, including 500,000 children who are suffering from imminent, life-threatening severe malnutrition, according to UNICEF. 1.6 million additional children under five years old are severely malnourished.

“This humanitarian crisis is caused by an unprecedented drought in the region, where families traditionally rely on livestock and farming for food. Food prices have spiked, crops and livestock are failing, and rivers are at their lowest levels in recent memory”.

Nothing is being said about their unsustainable population growth, that this aid is supposed to compensate for.

Unsustainable and unhindered population growth

High levels of population growth is exacerbating food shortages in Uganda, Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia.   Unless we address population growth and provide reproductive health with aid responses, the children we save now will be bringing their families to the same feeding centres in a few years time. 

Addressing population growth has to be the most important goal of the human race.    

The director of the Australian Demographic and Social Research Centre at the ANU, Professor Peter McDonald, says that the  amount of funding for family planning programs has reduced dramatically over the years. 

The population of Africa is expected to triple by the end of the century, and lack of access to or knowledge of family planning and contraceptives is a serious issue around the world that needs to be addressed.

Aid, community action and access to family planning must go hand in hand else it is a matter of throwing funds at the inevitable  problems further down the track.

The economies of these countries are doing badly and standard of living are ranked among the lowest in Africa. Since the severe drought of 1984 that was reported to have caused the death of more than a million people in Ethiopia and Eritrea, these countries have not been able to meet their household food requirement.

Malthusian Trap is a consequence of human numbers outstripping the ability to increase food production.

Horn of Africa's human population growth that is estimated at 3.2% annually. Nearly half the current population is under 15 years of age thus unable to contribute to the economy. The increasing population continues to put pressure on the already fragile land.

No positive correlation between wealth and population size

Nigeria, Africa's most populous country at 158 million, is expected to grow to 730 million by century's end, making it larger than Europe's projected population of 675 million.

Together the population of 11 African nations - the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Niger, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia is expected to reach 2.4 billion by 2100, representing about a quarter of the world's population at that time.

The population of Ethiopia has doubled from 46 million to 84 million since Sir Bob Geldof raised 150 million in aid. The private donors should stop until they agree to manage their family sizes, and destinies.

The obvious is not applied to human population size

We know not to put more sheep or cattle into a paddock than there is feed to make them healthy, yet people and non government organisations still continue to deny human population sizes in addressing or recognising the problem.

The raging monster upon the land is population growth. In its presence, sustainability is but a fragile theoretical construct.  To say, as many do, that the difficulties of nations are not due to people, but to poor ideology and land-use management is sophistic. Harvard scholar and biologist E.O. Wilson

Unlimited population growth cannot be sustained; you cannot sustain growth in the rates of consumption of resources. No species can overrun the carrying capacity of a finite land mass. This Law cannot be repealed and is not negotiable. Dr. Albert Bartlett, www.albartlett.o rg , University of Colorado, USA.

It took nearly 130 years for the world population to grow from 1 to 2 billion, but the recent growth from 6 to 7 billion has occurred in only 12 years. Such is the “success” of our own species, we could easily end up being victims of it!