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	Speculators continue to profit as world"s poorest go Hungry by IPS, The Independent & agencies   September 2012   Some of the world"s most powerful financial institutions are accused of profiteering on the backs of the world"s poorest people and those most vulnerable to the wild price fluctuations caused by over-rampant speculation on the price of food commodities like wheat, soy beans, and corn.   Over one billion people are already too poor to feed themselves, so any long-term food spike is guaranteed to trap millions more who are now just “getting by,” says Oxfam.   "Barclays is the UK bank with the greatest involvement in food commodity trading and is one of the three biggest global players, along with the US banking giants Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley," reported the UK"s Independent, citing research from the World Development Movement.   Christine Haigh, policy and campaigns officer at the WDM and one of the analysts behind the research, said the behavior of the banks "risks fuelling a speculative bubble and contributing to hunger and poverty for millions of the world"s poorest people."   As droughts have devastated grain crops in major agricultural strongholds like the US and India this year, experts warn of a food crisis taking shape across the globe.   The accusations of "profiteering" by groups like WDM and Oxfam International, however, transcend the price changes due to external conditions like drought or farmers who use commodity indexes to protect the price of their crops, and speak to the greed and recklessness of investors who create volatile trading conditions by speculating on the future prices of such commodities with no regard for the harm it does to real people.   "Fragile populations around the world, living on or near the poverty line, will be dragged under by price spikes and volatility," said Oxfam in a recent statement.   "A billion people are already too poor to feed themselves, so any long-term food spike is guaranteed to trap millions more who are now just "getting by"."   The World Development Movement report estimates that Barclays made as much as $840 million from its "food speculative activities" over the course of 2010 and 2011. Barclays made much more from food speculation in 2010, as the prices of agricultural commodities were rising, and a smaller sum in 2011 as prices fell.   As the Independent reported: "The extent of just one bank"s involvement in agricultural markets will add to concerns that food speculation could help push basic prices so high that they trigger a wave of riots in the world"s poorest countries, as staples drift out of their populations reach."   Oxfam"s private sector adviser, Rob Nash, said: "The food market is becoming a playground for investors rather than a market place for farmers. The trend of big investors betting on food prices is transforming food into a financial asset while exacerbating the risk of price spikes that hit the poor hardest."   The Independent adds: "The revenues that Barclays and other banks make from trading in everything from wheat and corn to coffee and cocoa, are expected to increase this year, with prices once again on the rise. Corn prices have risen by 45 per cent since the start of June, with wheat jumping by 30 per cent".   Barclays makes most of its "food-speculation" revenues by setting up and managing commodity funds that invest money from pension funds, insurance companies and wealthy individuals in a variety of agricultural products in return for fees and commissions. The bank claims not to invest its own money in such commodities.   Since deregulation allowed the creation of such funds in 2000, institutions such as Barclays have collectively channelled an astonishing $200bn (£126bn) of investment cash into agricultural commodities, according to the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission.   Aug 2012   G20 Leaders urged to heed global food crisis warning.   Environmentalists say the world is on the brink of a new era of food scarcity driven by a "perfect storm" of climate change, water shortage and a rising population.   US analyst and author Lester Brown, described by the Washington Post as "one of the world"s most influential thinkers", believes the issue of food security will shape global politics for decades to come.   "Food is the new oil, land is the new gold," he said. "So we"re seeing the changing geopolitics of access to land and water become as important or more important as access to oil."   In 2008 the rising cost of food led to riots and protests in at least 30 countries. Soaring food prices was at least one of the triggers for the recent wave of popular uprisings which transformed the Middle East.   Now the unrelenting drought in the United States, the world"s largest corn grower, is sparking fresh fears of a global food crisis and social unrest.   Severe draught is also crippling farmland in Russia"s wheat belt, while below average monsoon rains in India is also adding to concern that global grain crops could plunge.   Lester Brown says the rise in world grain consumption has historically been driven largely by population growth.   "The world"s corn harvest is now the largest grain harvest - larger than wheat and rice - and over a third of world"s corn is produced in US so any dramatic shrinkage in that will affect people around the world," he said.   "And it"s not only that, as you know it"s fed to cattle, pigs and chicken. So it"s the price of meat that"s really at stake here when the price of corn doubles as it has over the last several months.   "The world is adding 80 more million people are year and that means there"s an extra 219,000 people at the dinner table tonight who weren"t there last night.   Mr Brown says a future with higher food prices will be a matter of great concern in developing countries where people buy grain directly, and it"s the poor who will feel the squeeze of food scarcity.   Lester Brown is not convinced world leaders will heed the wake up call.   "We"ve moved into a new era of tightening food with poor people affected, and exactly where this is going to take us remains to be seen but it seems to me quite certain we"re going to see more and more food unrest unless we can address the big three - population growth, climate change and water - these are the areas where we need to act, and act quickly."   Last week, the FAO said that food prices had gone up in July up by six percent compared to the previous month. Grains and sugar were the main drivers of the increase. Commenting on the FAO report, Colin Roche of Oxfam International told IPS, “This is not some monthly wake-up call. It’s the same global alarm that has been screaming at us since 2008.   “These new figures prove that the world’s food system cannot cope on crumbling foundations,” he said, adding that urgent actions must be taken by government, particularly the most advanced economies in the G20.   While attention is focused on a severe drought in the United States cornbelt, Roche believes that the problem has much deeper roots. Climate change, for example, is impacting harvests around the world.   Since the global economic recession began in 2008, many independent development experts and economists have held that the problem of hunger is not going to go away unless policymakers take the issue of economic inequality seriously.   “Hunger is caused by poverty and inequality, not scarcity of food,” argues Eric Holt-Gimenez, executive director of the U.S.-based Institute for Food and Development Policy. Gimenez describes the failure of the U.S. corn harvests as a disaster for the world’s poor. “This is not because the poor eat our corn. They don’t eat corn-fed livestock from concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) either, nor do they fill up at the pump with ethanol-blended gasoline.”   But they will nonetheless “suffer the third global food disaster in four years because the price of corn will push up the price of other food commodities, like wheat, soybeans and rice. This will push up food prices overall.   “If the 2008 and 2011 food price crises are any guide,” he says, “the global effects of the U.S. drought are fairly predictable.” He thinks that the bump in commodity prices will send a market signal for speculative investment, pushing the price of grain up even further.   But those countries with fragile regimes, in his analysis, will be challenged to keep food prices below the “riot” thresholds.“They will direct food primarily to the cities, and the highest prices will be in the countryside, where the rural poor will not be able to afford to buy food.”   In 2008, soaring food prices unleashed a wave of unrest in some 40 countries.   On efforts to tackle food insecurity, Oxfam’s Roche described the FAO report as the “ECG of a very sick patient” and suggested that the U.S. and the European Union must start dumping their “crazy” subsidy programmes that turn 40 percent of corn into fuel for cars and tracks.   “The G20 has the tools to tackle causes of spiking, volatile food prices and food insecurity today and into the future,” said Roche, adding that “they must reverse decades of under-investment into small-holder agriculture.”   Will the leaders of rich countries heed such advice? Gimenez doesn’t think so. “Neither will they do anything to address the root causes of hunger: the global concentration of market power, political decision, land, water, seeds, resources and our rapidly eroding agro-biodiversity in the hands of a few dozen agri-foods monopolies with absolutely no accountability to anyone except stockholders,” he said.   Agriculture, in his analysis, will not be removed from the World Trade Organisation, and the World Bank and International Monetary Fund will not allow poor countries to protect their agricultural sectors from the volatility of the world market.   “Chicago and Wall Street are not going to be restricted from speculating by any reinstatement of financial regulations. Grain monopolies will not be prevented from hoarding,” he predicted. “None of the immediate causes of hunger will be addressed.”
	Party-goers killed in southern Afghan village for having a late night party with music and dancing by Ahmad Nadeem Reuters Kandahar, Afghanistan   27 Aug 2012   Fifteen men and two women were found beheaded in Afghanistan"s southern Helmand province on Monday, murdered by Taliban insurgents for having a late night party with music and dancing, Afghan officials said.   The dead were found in a house near the Musa Qala district, about 75 km (46 miles) north of the provincial capital Lashkar Gah, said district governor Nimatullah, who only goes by one name.   "The victims were having a party with dancing and music when the Taliban attacked" on Sunday night, Nimatullah told Reuters.   There were no immediate claims of responsibility.   In ultra-conservative Afghanistan, men and women do not usually mingle unless they are related, and parties involving both men and women together are very rare.   For the Taliban, open displays of affection and the mixing of men and women are strenulously condemned.   According to witnesses of an attack that killed 20 people near Kabul in June, Taliban gunmen stormed an up market hotel demanding to know where the "prostitutes and pimps" were. The Taliban said it launched that attack because the hotel was used for "wild parties".   During their five-year reign, the Taliban banned women from voting, from most work and from leaving their homes unaccompanied by their husband or a male relative. Girls were not permitted schooling.   Such rights are being painstakingly regained, Afghanistan remains one of the worst places on earth to be a woman.   Helmand governor spokesman Daud Ahmadi said a team had been sent to the site of beheadings to investigate. Visit the related web page
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