in july two thousand and eleven the horn of africa was struck by a wave of famine. again our screens were flooded with images of a may see 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. with. something else to for him to see yours at least where we. grew up learning

about africa's 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's not right incomes or the interest of those who are put to it to be assisted in kenya or any other african country to improve their food

security plan hate. what i mean will be published. and you can see it even to be many ways because it becomes almost like. a business. to do what. it given once you can put together speaking we're looking at a very wealthy continent which has been now sustained into public teat just before the aiding the street and and that's why we need to put two and. approach both language. as i would you know changing the predicament of the african people.

her. to take. yeah. northern kenya was one of the regions affected during this recent famine wave. the land is arid and barren. that was. how i know i. am carried here now were written i am the turkana are this region's inhabitants one of kenya's

most traditional tribes and there. were never. 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. have never yet. i. but in recent years the ongoing droughts threaten their very existence. i. am. in northern kenya and we had a year with basically no rain and told to qana region as seen. successive droughts of the past few years and what we're seeing is the stress of getting more

and more frequent so 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. money trisha levels really short are. 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 and my small field was of no help the seeds died before they could sprout. a year young it was a bad year without a train we couldn't plant anything. but there was great hunger. even the wild fruit became rare. a rule while 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 or water because it was too dry and

a lot of the. animal in the way. that 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 womens. they died of hunger. there was no food and the government didn't help. if hope would come sooner with these people have been saved a year that all the guests they would be alive and these tombs wouldn't exist you've gone.

up she was complaining that she was hungry and thirsty. arguably. all of them are back with it she couldn't sustain herself they are working now 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 a problem you know the problem often with the world attention is that sometimes. people only play pay attention if you see the dying children. but our warning systems nowadays our knowledge is so sophisticated that we know months in advance we've been warning about this since to four 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.

good laboratory to mccurry was able to build a new most sophisticated robot which all unfortunately doesn't give a darn about anything tim's mission to teach creation why it should care about humans and worry that this is why you should care only on the.

the problem is that governments both national and international journalists and also the fish monitoring committee. during its always act as quickly as they can. and it takes unfortunately it takes you know those pictures 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 media 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 to respond because. their public expects them to do so. unfortunately you know action should have been taken at the start of two thousand and eleven or earlier in the year. vick should really have 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 song. ok. i am. heading. good. about my little no no no no

you mother me i'm not your mother no you're not. i don't know they provide them with food that accident the children and check them for signs of malnutrition. on the way did you come from. from the tell of. how far is motel oh. many hours away which means that i left for the sunrise. for decades 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 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.

we have given much to the impoverished peoples of europe one simple too bad i'm sorry. but as a counter measure 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 eighty 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 the pope and not the ballot here on our football. team going to break the bonds of their very we play our best effort to help them help them. all and her period is required not because of the economy with the baby growing it's not because we think they're both but we are getting it right in one thousand nine hundred eighty 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 a 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 ungar 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 flurried policy through human and. 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 today it was directed to countries the former eastern bloc the same pattern was repeated in afghanistan and iraq during the war on terror. if you are took aboard diplomacy it's a bit of subtle way of pushing a message on agenda. to another country you know because if you've seen even in a more circus training elephants to their training even cheap and since they use food in them if you don't train much fun to dance like a human being you keep rewarding it with a little biscuit or something so next time vindictive you jump up american people saying jump up you jump up you 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 little peace is good as it would be easy to prove to them or the police does that mean that the united states is doing business to actually be providing food at the same time. there's no politics behind it it's 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 arrives with an american plug on meat from the american people. if the first thing is this appreciation of the american people because if somebody helps you then you have to appreciate the. country that assists your people in this tough thing they approach you to bring in the invest. 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 whole in the last year. the chinese have to study what their wisdom

comes with doing the chinese also for the first time brought their food aid complete with trucks there was a most of much is that wait a minute this food aid thing is not just the 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. i. say.

i am i i am . mission free could you take should be free. for charges free. agent three. free.

free. download free broadcast quality video for your media projects and free media. tom. seals are born to right on the ice fields of the white sea. throughout the twentieth century the pulps were hunted for their snow white furs. russia imposed a ban on this trade and hunters have since been replaced by tourists but stay safe forever. saving seals on our teeth. we speak your language. news programs and documentaries in spanish as to you breaking news a little tonnage of angles couldn't stories. you hear.

the spanish. visit. i. speak. with. a. good book. limit. interests. in an. attempt to. find

a way that a little. i've . lived here a little bit. and. i

think. police. and social media. freedom of speach.