"President Obama has promised to end child hunger in the United States by 2015. But you haven't heard about it. The media is writing about what Michelle Obama is wearing. Or what kind of dog they're going to get," Joel Berg almost shouted.
Fifty people showed up to hear Mr. Berg, executive director of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger, talk about his new book, "All You Can Eat: How Hungry is America?" at WPXI last night.
RIO DE JANEIRO - While the government of the state of Rio de Janeiro insists that a wall being built around a poor neighbourhood is designed to protect what remains of Brazil's Atlantic rainforest from further encroachment by the slum, human rights groups say it is designed to further separate the rich and poor.
While the residents of the slums, known as favelas, built on the mountains surrounding the city are used to hiking up and down the steep stairs and alleyways of their neighbourhoods several times a day, climbing up to the wall is difficult for an outsider.
Get ready for the boomerang effect. The economic crisis that originated in this country has spread to the farthest corners of the planet. Global poverty is expected to jump by 53 million people and another 51 million workers will join the ranks of the jobless this year.
NEW YORK - From housebound grandmothers who relay on charity meal deliveries, to ailing retirees who cannot pay rising costs for medications, older Americans feeling the pinch of the financial crisis are getting angry and forming groups with names like "Senior Outrage."
In New York, with city and state tax revenues tumbling, benefits and services to the elderly are being cut, and many older residents are furiously drawing comparisons to the billions of dollars spent to bail out banks -- and pay Wall Street bonuses.
For many, Valentine's Day is a celebration of love. For others, Valentine's Day is about pain, heartache, and longing...but it doesn't have to be that way.
Valentine's Day and chocolate go hand-in-hand, but for parents of children trafficked into the cocoa fields and kept there as slaves, our hunger for chocolate is a nightmare of heartache for their stolen children.
A merry band of poverty activists danced down East Hastings Street Sunday to question the rationale behind the city and provincial governments' financial commitment to the Olympic Games.
The second annual "Poverty Olympics" was a lighthearted event aimed at raising awareness about the serious issues of poverty and homelessness that affect Downtown Eastside residents, said Wendy Pederson of the Carnegie Community Action Project.
UNITED NATIONS - Despite two decades of phenomenal world economic growth, income inequalities between the richest and poorest have steadily increased - a trend likely to be accentuated as economies across the globe begin to contract, experts say.
This paradox is particularly acute in developed countries where "the richer households benefited more than the poorer" from strong economic growth, said Naren Prasad of the International Institute for Labor Studies, part of the International Labor Organization (ILO).
WASHINGTON - Despite soaring unemployment and the worst economic crisis in decades, 18 states cut their welfare rolls last year, and nationally the number of people receiving cash assistance remained at or near the lowest in more than 40 years.
The trends, based on an analysis of new state data collected by The New York Times, raise questions about how well a revamped welfare system with great state discretion is responding to growing hardships.
RIO DE JANEIRO - Plans to surround a Rio de Janeiro slum with a 650-metre-long concrete barrier have come under fire from environmentalists and human rights activists.
Authorities say the R$1m (£300,000) "eco-barrier", which will encircle part of the famous Dona Marta slum in southern part of the city, is intended to protect the nearby Atlantic rainforest from illegal occupation as well as improve security and living conditions for slum residents.
One billion people will go hungry around the globe next year for the
first time in human history, as the international financial crisis
deepens, the United Nations has told The Independent on Sunday.
The
shocking landmark will be passed - despite a second record worldwide
harvest in a row - because people are becoming too destitute to buy the
food that is produced.
