good leverage. was able to build the world's most sophisticated. fortunately don't learn about anything tim's mission to teach me. this is why you should care only. sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear sees some other part of it and realize everything is ok. i'm tom harpur welcome to the big picture.

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in july two thousand and eleven the horn of africa was struck by a wave of famine and. again our screens were flooded with images of m a c that africans.

over thirteen million people in somalia kenya ethiopia eritrea and djibouti are once again threatened by famine. the u.n. approaches the international community for immediate food aid. and. you know the way the children from the most horrific that we've seen over the

years that. we grew up learning about africa is hunger problems. that the african people always suffer from hunger and the so-called developed world always stands food. is there perhaps something wrong with the food aid mechanism. if you're looking at all this money that has been pumped into the fifty's and you're still starving. then it means that something is not right in crimes of the interest of those who

are putting to be assisted in kenya or any other african country to improve their food security plan hate. what i'm to movie pumped. and you can see it in going to be many ways because it becomes almost like. a business. to do what. it gives once you can put together speaking we're looking at a very wealthy continent which has been now sustained into public t.v. just before the aiding the street and that's why we need to put two and. these approach both language. as i would you know changing the predicament. if a comfortable. yeah

. northern kenya was one of the regions affected during this recent famine wave. the land is arid and barren. that was. how i met. them gary

did that were written i am the turkana are this region's inhabitants one of kenya's most traditional tribes and there. were no but. i got it in my. head it that was. their nomadic pastoralists. for centuries they have learned to survive on this harsh land depending on the rain periods. i. might never find that way yet. i. but in recent years the ongoing droughts threaten their very existence. i guess that yeah. i guess in northern kenya we had a year with basically no rain and tools to come in

a region as seen. successive droughts of the past few years and what we're seeing is these tracks are getting more and more frequent and the rain is becoming less and less common. the traps left many of the animals is very very weak so people didn't have that didn't have the usual income. of. manu titian level is really short term. not what the global acute malnutrition rate is fifteen percent in some areas of true country it was up to fifty seven percent that is more than double. the. yard work i had to go to. i mean to go to not five and they all died.

even then we couldn't eat them. your little boy in my small field was of no help the seeds died before they could sprout. a year young it was a bad year without trained we couldn't plant anything. but there was great hunger. even the wild fruit became rare. afternoon when my sister died last year during the long drought that she was old and as there was no food. no she died and i came to take care of her children.

there was no food over water because it was too dry and a lot of the. animal immediately there. you probably know how bad it was last year on the way most animals died. you get this is a man's tomb and the other two are women. they died of hunger. there was no food and the government didn't help. if hope would come sooner would these people have been saved a year that all they guess they would be alive and these tombs wouldn't exist.

she was complaining that she was hungry and thirsty all up well arguably. on the back with it she couldn't sustain herself. there weren't enough but everybody knows we need food and water to live. he put it in. how long after her death did the food arrive. after five months.

it is chilling to say the least to hear that the two thousand and one drought had been predicted and that lives could have been saved if the system functioned differently the drug does not happen just like switching on and off. drugs is something that comes with being a period of time. after ethiopia's famine in one thousand nine hundred fourteen one thousand nine hundred five which left one million victims the us created a forecast system for dangerous droughts in order to avoid similar tragedies in the future.

in two thousand and ten this system had already warned of things to come. yeah we saw it coming and we've been warning for months before you know people were paying attention death sometimes to problems you know the problem often with the world attention is that sometimes. people only play pay attention if you see the dying children. but i will warning systems nowadays our knowledge is so sophisticated that we know months in advance we've been warning about this since the fall before the crisis happened and because we could see that the rains weren't good enough. but people were left to starve. they had to die before the international community was mobilized.

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the problem is that governments both national and international journalists and also the fish monitoring committee. during its always acts as quickly as they can. and it takes unfortunately it takes you know those pitches on t.v. screens to really mobilize public opinion and get governments and politicians interested in the crisis. when it becomes of more interest to the international then you tend to get

a very strong public response which is extremely helpful which pushes the politicians into action because when the public has about it then the politicians know they need to respond because. their public expects them to do so. unfortunately you know action could have been taken at the start of two thousand and eleven or earlier in the year. pictured really of stopped it becoming such a big crisis but unfortunately. far too often the action isn't taken until it's too late and so people are already suffering.

and it's not the first time that the turkana people receive help. international organizations and n.g.o.s have been visiting their area for the last fifteen years . and they always welcomed them with joyous songs. there's a lot. of . a lot. of them yes. i am a. no no no no.

the women are not your mother no no no. no they provide them with food that accident the children and check them for signs of malnutrition. on the way that you come from. from the tell of. how far is not to load. many hours away which means that i left with the sunrise. for decades to turkana have been living in a constant state of hunger. they belong to one billion people around the world

who have no access to their daily nourishment while at the same time more food than ever is being produced on the planet. contrary to crisis periods this chronic hunger phenomenon rarely reaches the evening news. never the less it is deadly. it kills over fifteen million people yearly. three times more than those killed during the gear of the second world war. approximately six and a half million of them are children eighteen thousand dollars every day. to fight hunger the international community decided to distribute food to those in

need. however since its birth in one nine hundred fifty four and until today food aid has never been a matter of sheer humanitarianism it's been a matter of economic and political correlations with the u.s. playing the leading role the simple reason everyone focuses on u.s. food aid policy is us accounts for more than half of all the world's food aid so as goes the united states so goes the global food aid regime you know the united states is providing fifty to sixty percent of the world's food aid any given year all of europe combined only provide fifteen to twenty percent. of the.

we have given much to the impoverished peoples of europe one simple too bad i'm sorry. but as a countermeasure against the attempt by the soviet union to come you know if you're up the american people start with the strategy for cooperating with the non communist countries in a comprehensive bipartisan european recovery program. after the success of the marshall plan which delivered tons of food to western europe. in one thousand nine hundred four president eisenhower signed the famous public law for eighty whatever. the new laws purpose was to distribute the u.s. agricultural surpluses serving at the same time as a tool for economic and foreign policy which would help promote the country's interests. according to the president's own words the new law lays the basis for expanding our exports of agricultural products with

lasting benefits to ourselves and peoples of other lands. oh and great growth and profitability here on our football. team are going to break the bonds of their pedigree we bet they're going to help them help them. all whatever period is required not because the communists maybe doing it not because we think they're both but we are getting it right in one nine hundred sixty one president kennedy acknowledged public love for eighty as being a fundamental importance to the united states and renamed it food for peace. so the primary objective of food aid policy was surplus disposal but it had a secondary objectives the hope that it would also build future export markets for u.s. agricultural commodities and that it could achieve humanitarian objectives associated

with reducing hunger and under-nutrition and that it could perhaps with some our allies abroad. with the same law kennedy founded usaid the u.s. organization responsible for international development which would administer civilian foreign aid. is. the u.s. government for spreading many foreign policy through human kind. systems. during the cold war large quantities of food were sent to countries of strategic importance to the united states like india indonesia and pakistan. likewise large cargoes were sent to eastern asia during the korean and vietnam wars.

during the seventy's a large bulk of food aid went to the middle east. during the ninety's after the fall of the berlin wall food aid was directed to countries the former eastern bloc the same pattern was repeated in afghanistan and iraq during the war on terror. if you have took aboard diplomacy it's a bit a subtle way of pushing a message of agenda. to another country you know because if you do even if you've seen even more so because dick cheney elephants for their training even cheap and since they use food isn't it if you don't train much fun to dance like a human being you keep rewarding it with a little biscuit or something so mixed am vindictive you jump up american people sing jump up you jump up see what i mean.

from very early on africa became the focus of attention as the u.s. and soviet union were trying to gain zones of influence countries like somalia ethiopia and kenya received help. there's a lot of pieces that the u.s. would be easy to prove to them or the police's doesn't mean that the united states is doing business to actually be providing relief to the the time. no politics behind going in there we're trying to do things in a way that is most effective way to save lives so i don't think that criticism

really holds true. i'm honored to work for this organization i think we do fabulous were partners in the united nations and it's really inspiring. when the bug out arrives with an american plug on needs from the american people. if they're the first thing is this the appreciation of the american people because if somebody helps you then you have to appreciate that. for a country that assists your people in this tough in the approach you to bring in the investments. you see the be very much willing to tell them good them come and if you're not just doing the the funding in the hole in last year. the child needs to study what their wisdom comes with doing the chinese also for the first

time brought their food aid complete with trucks there was almost as much as that wait a minute this food aid thing is not just you know some tusk another soaked up torch in terms of winning all over the country to dominate over to push their value such across the globe. apart from helping foreign policy food aid also had other benefits and help with internal affairs namely the large american agribusiness and shipping companies. but there are other important beneficiaries lurking in the shadows one are agribusinesses and i emphasize agribusinesses rather than for. farmers because very little food aid is sold by farmers directly that sold by large firms the great

hidden beneficiary for u.s. food aid and this is distinct from any other food aid program in the world are the shippers. modern russia was built on coal. fuel for its factories. coke for its steel newmark gold is it hot and heat for its people. join me james brown to meet them and spend their lives underground and work in one of the world's most dangerous professions. would lets you. hearts of coal on naughty.

real damage and complexity of this oil spill was not something you can grasp just by looking at dirty birds we have between four to five million people in this directly affected area of the coast and it's pretty clear why it's not being reported because b.p. can't afford to have a reported all along the gulf coast are clean they are safe and they're open for business if b.p. is the single largest oil contributor to the pentagon the us war machine is heavily reliant upon b.p. and their oil this is a huge step backwards for the marker see it's a step forward oligarchy carex it is toxic is a look a lot like spraying in vietnam it was it was not a picture that either the government or be. really want to i don't want dispersants to be the age of. this.

news at the week's top stories here on our. big story in the country's history general election. attacks. turkey blames a syrian intelligence for the deadly cross border. seen as an entry point for syrian refugees and rebels. while russia the u.s. and britain officially converge on a common approach to mediate this in syria despite the ongoing western backing. and. the first anniversary of becoming the french president has to use his popularity his love and drives to.