By Rev. Lainie Dowell

OBAMA HAS NOT CHANGED!
HE STILL DOES NOT LOVE AMERICA!

How much does the United States Congress think Americans are willing to take from the Barack Hussein Obama Administration without their protecting us? We cannot even get a direct response from our elected leaders. The government offices that are paid for by taxpayer dollars have gotten worse as the day is long.

Government employees act as if they are beholden to the man in the Office of the White House and not to the Constitution or the constituents. What is going on across this nation is criminal. People are speaking out against the ongoing Obama Constitutional violations and so, too, are a few legislators; and yet these legislators have the temerity to turn their backs and cover their ears to not see or hear — but without a doubt we know that they know what is going on across this nation. Barack Obama is in their face every day lambasting and berating them and they cower in the name of respect for the office. But I declare anybody fit to occupy that office would never knowingly, deliberately, and willfully spit in the faces of constituents with such distaste and disdain for the American way of life. That is, not if they know what constitutes the American way of life. Well, we do!

The occupant of the White House Office of the President does not ever have Constitutional authority to circumvent the authority of the United States Congress and Senate to arbitrarily and unilaterally haul in a bunch of his own lobbyists to bully Americans – especially in such a partisan way. And the current occupant, Barrack Hussein Obama and his co-horts Michelle Obama (wife), Rahm Emanuel, Valerie Jarrett, David Axelrod, and his overloaded office of his appointed misfit czars and thousands of his so-called “volunteers” have all taken to our streets and airwaves in just over a scant ten months of Obama in office. And, like ACORN and SEIU, they continue to bully and steamroller every area of our lives and even our death dates with the push of their so-called “Health Care Reform.”

If Congress doesn’t speak up then it is time for them to hear the roar of the discontent all across America and, I daresay, even across the battlefields on foreign shores where our brave men and women wait for Obama to make a decision to help save their lives while they sacrifice for our Constitutional freedoms.

After I published my last article about the ongoing Obama government takeover of the world wide web via Web 2.0 and other software groups via the social media sites across the Net, my Comcast internet TV and computer internet access mysteriously went down and was not attended to for six days. It was caused, we found out, by a tampering with our outside “TAP” box. Yet, they kept making excuses and changing the date to come out to take care of it. Finally, I phoned one last time and laid them out and somebody came and connected us to the internet again! It is a sin and a shame when we cannot trust our government to come to our aid and don’t even see the reason to try anymore. But I am sure that is just the way they want it in the White House.

People are talking about “Wait until 2010!” But do they realize that it is not until the end of that year and that by then America won’t even be recognizable. Who said the President has authority to run our lives as if we were the children? Not even their two girls or that dog have as much of a leash as he has presumed to put onto the American people. It is outrageous and enough is enough.

I cannot understand how the auto dealerships allowed Obama and his Chicago gang to take their stock away and, in most cases, handed them over to other dealers down the street from them, without even putting up a knock down drag out fight. Many of those dealers had the money, paperwork, and the folk to stop it. They should have still been in court to fight it, if need be. We don’t tell abused victims to go back to their victimizers and neither should grown men and women expect to embrace anybody who victimizes them — including the government. WAKE UP!

Then Obama jumped on our banks and took complete control over them under false pretext that the government had the legal authority and the Constitutional “muscle” to muscle in on their businesses. And worst yet, the bankers allowed them to do it without even calling for an audit of not only those banks but the entire Federal Reserve.

How could our corporate “giants” sit in front of Congress and allow themselves to be berated and told they were greedy and too rich and had to give away their wealth to the less fortunate? Then we watched as they apologized and got up and allowed the “government” to take over their businesses. But who has benefited financially from all of this? Barack Obama and the very staff and Congresspersons who had berated them and backdated the laws to make them give back the money they had contracted to earn for their work in the company. That is not right! America is a CAPITALIST society and anybody who wants to excel and have a certain economic lifestyle can do so. Something is wrong with the government, elected — and not with the American people, neglected.

BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA BUILDS HIS OWN GOVERNMENT INSIDE OF OUR GOVERNMENT

Just as we told Americans to wake up, so now do we shout it to our elected leaders. They have also taken an oath and sworn “So help me God,” to uphold our Constitution. But, when do they intend to do that? Or do they intend to do that? Instead, the government is steadily locking citizens out of the process. However, Obama said he was going to have a “transparent administration.” Well, believe it or not, we can see right through him. And any American citizen with an ounce of sense knows Obama can have no authority except the Constitution has given it to him or anybody else in government and this entire nation. He has overstepped his Constitutional boundaries.

OBAMA FOR AMERICA IS NOW CALLED ORGANIZING FOR AMERICA – (OFA)
IT IS STILL THE SAME AND OBAMA LOBBIES OUT OF THE WHITE HOUSE

In recent years, some elected officials have been chastised by Congress for even using a telephone at their desk to call a constituent or a stamp to mail a letter to a constituent, if it even remotely involved politics. Why is Obama treated any different when he has brought his whole personal lobbying arm of so-called volunteers into the White House and into the entire government and has made no secret of it? Now, Congress can act to stop this but won’t. Why not?

Obama is still campaigning whole hog out of the White House all across America and the entire world. His purpose is to continue in that office while he closes his people in and closes Americans out. He is steadily building a coalition parliamentarian government to lead to him having a dictatorship. And Congress is allowing it.

Before you read the latest email I received which was sent by Obama, I want to know also why – when the President of the United States has to be a natural born citizen (and we are not altogether certain that he is) then how is it we have a man who has served in the Israeli Military serving now as a surrogate President in the White House? I am speaking about Rahm Emanuel. Why is he there in that White House Office making Presidential decisions that affect our very lives and what a mess they are making of this nation. Valerie Jarrett, the other right arm of Obama is Iranian. Why is she in the White House Office of the President? No wonder they believe they are the only ones who are authorized to act above the law. None of them considers themself AMERICAN! Now, where do we go from here?! I’ll start with a “VOTE OF NO CONFIDENCE” AND A CALL TO IMPEACH HIM NOW!

I don’t know about you but I am not now and never will be used to having a person in the White House who is not trustworthy, and who is deliberately and arrogantly so uncaring. But he is wrong and who is going to tell him that? We only have one President — not coalitions and not continuous electioneering and his own personal, private government within the United States of America government. Obama is slicker than “Slick Willy,” his mentor and supporter and impeached former President William Jefferson Clinton. And, the end result of Obama’s ongoing actions will be destruction of the U.S. Constitution, the U.S. Congress, and our FREEDOM!

That will not and must not happen. But, if Obama continues lobbying and campaigning and collecting worldwide donations, there will be no room for the election process to continue and no need for it to do so, because, if Obama has his way, he will remain in office in perpetuity. He makes up the rules as he goes along. And if he doesn’t like the laws, he changes them to conform to his own will. And Congress allows him to do that. But Obama is a street thug and we know it. And we know he and his gang do not care who they have to destroy to force their illegal way. He puts America to shame. And you thought you couldn’t stand rappers?

What follows is another one of Obama’s lobbying emails I received which continues to flood email boxes across this nation from the White House. Read it and respond but this must be stopped! And you thought ACORN was bad enough?! Obama has demonstrated no respect for America. He and his team act as if they are above the law as they go about tearing down this nation and continuing to blame the previous administration of former President George W. Bush for what he has labelled “a mess.” We never hear Obama or the DEMS or anybody else mention that Obama was in both the Illinois state Senate and the U.S. Senate during the Bush administration.

End

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Puntland officials say the most common game in the area is gazelle (such as this one above) and ostrich (file photo)

NAIROBI,  – Authorities in the self-declared autonomous region of Puntland, northeastern Somalia, are compiling data on foreign helicopters said to be poaching and stealing wildlife from the area while at the same time scaring off the farm animals.

“We have been getting reports in the past few months of unidentified helicopters swooping in from the sea and attacking and taking wildlife,” Abdiqani Yusuf Ade, Puntland’s Environment Minister, told IRIN.

He said the authorities did not have a clear picture of “who was involved or from what countries”.

Ade said Puntland was calling on countries whose forces were stationed off the Somali coast as part of the anti-piracy efforts to stop the poaching if they were involved.

He said the authorities had asked residents in the coastal villages to take photographs of the helicopters. “We are trying to get visual evidence to show the world. If the information we are getting is correct, what is happening is illegal,” he said. “These forces are here to fight piracy; they should not be poaching our natural resources.”

Noise pollution

Abdiaziz Aw Yusuf, the district commissioner of Jariban, near the area where the helicopters are alleged to be poaching, told IRIN it had been going on for some time. “They usually operate in an area between the coastal villages of Eil Danan and Dhinowda Digdigle.”

He said the helicopters scattered the wildlife and once they had landed, two or three men captured the animals. He said the most common game in the area was gazelle and ostrich.

Yusuf said the noise of the helicopters was affecting the local population and their livestock. Many were lost after being frightened by the planes and stampeding. He said some had been eaten by predators.

“We have forwarded our complaints and what information we have collected to the Puntland government,” Yusuf said.

Photo: IRIN

A helicopter used for aid delivery: Puntland authorities are compiling data on foreign helicopters said to be poaching and stealing wildlife from the area (file photo)

Easy access

Ahmed Aden, an elder in Garad town, 5km south of the area, told IRIN the helicopters came from ships that could be seen from the land.

Aden said because the area was flat and grassy, it was easy for the helicopters to land. He said the dust raised disoriented the animals, allowing the men on board to capture them.

“It has become normal to see them on a daily basis,” Aden said. “They [foreign forces] claim to be guarding against pirates but who is guarding us and our resources against them?”

ah/mw source.irinnews.org

Photo: James Hall/IRIN

Thuli Mswane, the politician calling for sex work to be decriminalised

MBABANE,  – A search for ways to curb the spread of HIV in Swaziland has led to a public debate on legalizing sex work, which would have been unheard of 10 years ago in this poor, food-insecure country.

The woman at the centre of the debate is Senator Thuli Mswane, who is also director of Hospice at Home, a local home-based care organization headquartered in Matsapha, between the capital, Mbabane, and the country’s industrial centre, Manzini.

Swaziland’s new tourism developments lie in the Ezulwini area, east of Mbabane, and the combined lure of large population centres and foreign visitors has inevitably given rise to a thriving sex industry.

Mswane has announced her intention to champion the cause of legalized sex work by requesting that the justice ministry introduce a bill legalizing the sex trade as a means of controlling the spread of HIV; Swaziland has the highest prevalence rate in the world.

“Studies have shown that the trade of prostitutes [in countries where it is legal] is not risky to clients, as sex workers protect themselves; hence my appeal for government to consider legalizing brothel ownership and sex work,” said Mswane.

Her announcement has created a sensation in this small conservative country. Although roadside sex workers have been a fixture in Matsapha and Ezulwini for years, the illegal profession has gone largely unacknowledged by health officials and ignored by the police.

Last year the first media exposure of an operating brothel was thought a shocking story; moreover, underage girls were found living and working there. The girls dispersed to other homes – later to resume their trade – and no arrests were made.

The incident also exposed a growth in prostitution that has mirrored rising poverty and the continuing marginalization of women. Traditional views on the role of women prevail in Swaziland’s deeply patriarchal society.

“In most instances, women are the ones who engage in the trade as a result of abuse meted out by their [male] partners at home … whilst also struggling to earn a living,” Mswane noted.

Sex work does exist

Mswane’s call to legalize the sex trade has been welcomed by some NGOs. “If we don’t legalize sex work, women will continue to be exploited and violated, so legalizing it would mean their protection is guaranteed,” said Cebile Henwood, director of the Manzini-based Swaziland Action Group against Abuse (SWAGAA).

“These people [sex workers] have rights, and deserve to be protected just like anyone else … If sex work is legalized then women will have access to services such as health … they will be able to insist on protection such as ensuring clients use condoms.”

Because sex workers engage in an illegal activity, reporting abuse to SWAGAA or gaining access to the justice system, as other victims of abuse could, was extremely difficult, she added.

Emmanuel Ndlangamanda, executive director of the Council of Non-Governmental Organisations (CANGO), told IRIN/PlusNews that the illegal nature of sex work made it difficult for sex workers to access health facilities, but they were at higher risk of HIV as they did not receive adequate support and education.

The proposed Sexual offences and Domestic Violence Bill, which sparked Mswane’s campaign, would outlaw brothel ownership and impose a 10-year prison sentence; anyone caught residing in a brothel would also be breaking the law.

“The Bill criminalizes running of a brothel and outlines a fine for it – in other countries sex workers are part of the economy, as they are taxed and assessed on a continuous basis,” Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs Ndumiso Mamba admitted to MPs.

However, he dismissed any suggestion that his ministry would pursue decriminalization. “Based on Christian principles, government cannot be seen to be condoning it,” he said.

Most Swazis seem to agree. A non-scientific on-line poll conducted by the Swazi Observer, a local newspaper, found that 87.5 percent of respondents did not want prostitution legalized, compared to 12.5 percent who supported decriminalization.

The Council of Swaziland Churches, an umbrella body, has slammed Mswane’s call to decriminalize sex work. “As a faith-based organization we cannot be seen promoting sex work,” said Khangezile Dlamini, secretary-general of the umbrella body.

“Sex workers are responsible for the spread of HIV and while … [they do not have] multiple concurrent partners, [they have] a number of clients. Besides being Biblically wrong, in Swazi culture sex work has never been … [condoned].”

The debate has, at least, established the reality of sex work, and highlighted the exploited lives of the women who make their living from it, even if government and the traditional authorities have shown no desire to entertain, much less pursue decriminalization of the trade.

jh/kn/he source.irinnews.org

SOUTHERN AFRICA: Life insurance for HIV-positive people, at a price

Photo: IRIN

HIV positive people are advised to take out funeral policies instead of life insurance

JOHANNESBURG, – The availability of antiretroviral (ARV) treatment and legislation prohibiting discrimination have helped turn HIV/AIDS into just another chronic disease, but an HIV-positive status can still be an obstacle to getting a loan or buying insurance.

Most life insurance companies in southern Africa still require applicants to take an HIV test and deny cover to those who test positive. Without life insurance as security, financial institutions are reluctant to lend money to buy a house or start a business.

“The denial of life cover inflicts on other rights,” said Amon Ngavetene, coordinator of the AIDS Unit at the Legal Assistance Centre (LAC), a non-profit legal advice organization in Namibia.

The LAC has called on the Namibian government to pass legislation prohibiting insurers from discriminating against people living with HIV, but so far to no effect.

Ngavetene noted that HIV-positive individuals were discriminated against even after their deaths. Those who contract HIV after taking out life cover and fail to notify the insurance company run the risk of having their policies invalidated if their death certificate shows they died of an AIDS-related illness.

“A person could be paying for 15 years, and then when they die their family can’t get a penny,” Ngavetene told IRIN/PlusNews. “It’s unconstitutional but very difficult to challenge because it becomes an issue of the terms of the contract.”

Insurance companies in Botswana also require applicants to take HIV tests, but Linny Keorapetse, an assistant legal officer at the Botswana Network on Ethics, Law and HIV/AIDS (BONELA), said at least one company, Metropolitan Life, would cover HIV-positive people, although at a much higher cost.

Those who test negative are required to re-test every five years, but a positive result at a later stage means the policy is automatically converted from life insurance into pure savings.

A person could be paying for 15 years, and then when they die their family can’t get a penny

Botswana’s constitution does not provide for socio-economic rights that could form the basis for a court case, said Keorapetse. “The only thing we can do is to make noise about it; we can say it’s discriminatory because it’s the only medical test [insurance companies] ask for, yet there are riskier conditions.”

Botswana has the second highest HIV prevalence rate in the world, with nearly one in four adults living with the virus, but it also has one of the most extensive ARV programmes in the region, with free treatment reaching about 90 percent of people who need it. “Nowadays, people living with HIV who take treatment can live another 20 years,” Keorapetse pointed out.

A different approach

Instead of discriminating against people living with HIV, Ross Beerman, managing director and co-founder of AllLife, a South African company, decided to take advantage of this gap in the market to specialize in providing HIV-positive people with life cover.

“We have a very different operating model,” he told IRIN/PlusNews. “In a standard model, you price policies based on historical behaviour … we price on forward-looking behaviour: if you’re HIV positive, we don’t really care how you behaved in the past, we care about you staying healthy in the future.”

Policyholders must commit to going for regular blood tests and starting ARV treatment when their CD4 count [a measure of immune system strength] drops below 200. Once on ARVs, AllLife closely monitors a client’s adherence via links with healthcare providers, and regular cellphone text message reminders and warnings if appointments are missed.

Premiums are between two and five times higher than normal life insurance policies (an average monthly payment of about US$40 buys $40,000 worth of life cover), but can be used to secure home loans and start businesses.

In addition, being a policyholder appears to have a positive health effect. “Just by virtue of being our clients they’re going for regular monitoring,” said Beerman. “They actually get approximately 15 percent healthier after six months; the realization they can have an impact on their longevity means they start behaving in more healthy ways.”

In contrast, HIV-positive people in Botswana are steered towards funeral policies or advised to join burial societies. “Currently, there’s no company that offers life insurance specifically for people living with HIV,” said Keorapetse.

AllLife relies on fairly sophisticated administrative and IT systems to function efficiently, which would be difficult to replicate in less developed countries in the region where, for example, blood test results are not captured electronically.

Nevertheless, Beerman said, people living with HIV have the right to participate in the mainstream economy “in a normal way”.

ks/he source.irinnews.org

Photo: UNICEF/ EDY PURNOMO

Results from the Thai vaccine trial may not be as promising as they at first seemed

JOHANNESBURG,  The recent news that for the first time an HIV vaccine had shown some protective effect generated widespread excitement, until it emerged that the results were based on the most promising of three different analyses of the trial findings.

The trial team in Bangkok, Thailand’s capital, announced on 24 September that a combination of two vaccines had reduced the rate of HIV infection by 31 percent in about 8,200 volunteers, compared to around the same number who were given a placebo.

A few weeks later, researchers who had seen full data from the trial told Science magazine that an analysis based only on participants who had received all six doses of the vaccine at the right times did not show a statistically significant protective effect.

It was hoped that the release of more details from the trial to coincide with the AIDS Vaccine 2009 conference taking place in Paris this week would settle the question of whether the vaccine results were really as significant as the initial announcement had suggested or a mere fluke. Instead, full results of the study, published online yesterday in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) raised more questions than they answered.

The 31 percent efficacy in the initial announcement was based on a “modified intention-to-treat” analysis that included all the 16,402 trial participants, except for seven who were found to have contracted HIV before receiving any vaccinations.

A second analysis included those seven, while a third “per-protocol” analysis involving 12,452 participants – the one cited in Science magazine – found that the vaccine was only 26 percent effective. This was not enough to be statistically significant, meaning that the difference between the vaccine and the placebo arms of the trial was so small that it could have been a coincidence.

Different interpretations

Dr Jerome Kim of the US Military HIV Research Programme, who helped lead the trial, yesterday told reporters at the vaccine conference in Paris that the modified intention-to-treat analysis was the most accurate, but others disagreed.

A statistician quoted in a New York Times report placed more emphasis on the analysis that included the seven HIV-positive participants, while another did not believe that any of the analyses provided sufficient evidence the vaccine worked.

In an editorial accompanying the article, NEJM editor Raphael Dolin said that “although the merits of each type of analysis can be debated, all three yielded a possible, albeit modest, effect of the vaccine in preventing HIV infection.”

The study authors also argued that, taken together, the three different analyses of the results were “consistent with a modest protective effect of vaccine”, but could not explain why other findings from the trial indicated that the vaccine’s efficacy appeared to decrease over time, or why it was less effective among participants at high risk of infection.

They were also unsure whether it was one of the two vaccines that produced a potentially protective effect, or the combination of the two. Dolin noted that the findings raised “a number of questions that have important implications for future directions in vaccine research”, and recommended that the duration of the vaccine’s effect be addressed by following up the trial participants, as well as by future trials.

According to a report by a South African news service, Health-e, Colonel Nelson Michael of the US Military HIV Research Programme, another lead investigator of the Thai trial, told a press conference in Paris that a further study of the vaccine may be conducted in South Africa, which has a much higher HIV prevalence than Thailand. The vaccine would have to be modified to contain the strain of HIV most common in sub-Saharan Africa.

ks/he source.irinnews.org

Photo: WFP

Aftermath of drought and locust invasions in Niger, 2005. It is too early to tell the extent of the erratic rainfall’s impact on the eastern Sahel this year (file photo)

DAKAR,  – Irregular and below-average rains in parts of northeastern Nigeria and eastern Niger have shortened the growing season for many farmers, sparking malnutrition and food insecurity concerns among aid groups and analysts.

In parts of the eastern Sahel, encompassing western Chad, northern Nigeria and southern Niger, the rains came late – in early July – picked up in August, and slowed down in September. Overall they were below-normal when compared to a 1998-2004 average, according to Nick Novella, Africa forecaster at the US climate prediction centre NOAA.

“Rainfall needs to be both sufficient and well-timed in the Sahel to enable some crops the four months they require to mature,” World Food Programme’s West Africa assessment officer, Jean-Martin Bauer, told IRIN.

Poor rainfall and early sowing failures were experienced in Tillabéri, Maradi, Zinder and Diffa in Niger, and pockets of 11 northern Nigerian states, according to regional weather forecasters and government sources.

But WFP’s Bauer told IRIN: “It is too early to tell the magnitude of the situation.” WFP, the US Agency for International Development’s Famine Early Warning System (FEWS NET), agriculture ministries and NGO representatives are assessing the crop and pasture situations in Chad, Burkina Faso, Nigeria and Niger this week and next, said Bauer.

Malnutrition concern

With already high rates of chronic malnutrition and child mortality in both countries, “any production deficits – even minor ones – can impact an already very fragile nutritional situation,” said FEWS NET programme manager John Scicchitano, basing his analysis on FEWS NET reports.

Diffa has Niger’s highest rate of acute malnutrition at 17 percent, according to the most recent government assessment; while UNICEF estimates 38 percent of under-fives in Nigeria suffer from chronic malnutrition.

Scicchitano added that malaria, which continues to be a danger at the end of the rainy season, puts children at greater risk of malnutrition, according to the World Health Organization.

Nutrition problems could start to emerge this year as a result.

Harvest

While harvests in Nigeria and Niger could be normal in some places, there are indications that some farmers will harvest nothing, Scicchitano reported.

Some zones in Niger’s far-east Diffa Region had no rainfall for 60 or more days, killing off rain-fed crops, said Mainema Mallam Mamadou of the local NGO Food Security and Local Economic Development (SADEL).

In Zinder, southern Niger, Secretary-General of the Federation of Agriculture Input Vendors Karimo Hamni told IRIN: “Preliminary harvest figures do not give us much hope… Our cash crops of beans and peanuts did poorly, which hits more than our stomachs. We are looking at cutting household expenses.”

He estimated almost 60 percent of the 57 villages his federation services, which include 4,300 growers, face a crop deficit this year.

Ibrahim Nomau, a farmer from Dundubus village in Nigeria’s Jigawa State, told IRIN: “This year’s harvest has been good for early planters and for farmers who used improved seed varieties with shorter maturity periods… but farmers who used low-yield traditional seeds with longer maturity periods are in for a loss.”

Sorghum and rice are of particular concern in the region, he added.

Pastoralists

Preliminary findings indicate agro-pastoral zones in Niger and northern Nigeria have been particularly hard hit by the insufficient rains, with pasture for livestock expected to be diminished, according to FEWS NET.

This could have a serious impact on pastoralists who have already seen their grazing land reduced over recent years, and their purchasing power eroded by persistently high staple food prices, the organization said. Pastoralists in Niger noted livestock weight loss and low milk production in the early part of the rainy season.

Markets

Food shortages are not simply a matter of rainfall, noted the Center for Global Development (CGD) in its “How Can We Avoid Another Food Crisis in Niger?” September 2008 report. “While droughts are often associated with production shocks in Niger, the relationship between drought and food crises is not well-understood… Local grain markets are highly responsive to national and sub-regional production and price shocks.”

It is too early to tell how a below-average harvest would affect Nigeria and Niger’s food markets, according to analysts. A FEWS NET October 2009 report LINK predicted the harvest in the eastern Sahel could lead to a decline in prices of some crops, but prices are still expected to stay at above-average levels into 2010.

Prices of millet, sorghum, beans and rice in Niger had fallen by 6 percent between mid-September and early October, according to the government.

The depreciation of Nigeria’s naira currency has made it unattractive for Niger’s producers to sell, which could curtail the high grain sales from Niger to Nigeria that deepened the 2005 crisis, said one analyst.

Recurrent drought and West Africa’s most devastating locust invasion in 15 years left millions in Niger at risk of hunger in 2005. (See read more box)

Food prices remained high throughout 2008 and the first half of 2009 as food and livestock producers, traders and governments strived to replenish stocks of cereals, cowpeas and oilseed that a poor 2007 harvest had depleted, said the October 2009 FEWS NET report.

In 2008 Niger reported a 38 percent increase in cereal production over 2007 but despite this, one million people faced food shortages going into the 2009 harvest period – more than 200,000 of them facing severe insecurity – based on a March 2009 government plan.

National cereal reserves were low as of early October, at just 2 percent of target levels in Nigeria – down by 18 percent since March – and 44 percent in Niger, according to FEWS NET.

Preparation

Some interventions have helped. The Niger government sold sorghum and cereals at below-market prices in the west of Niger in Tillabéri and Tera , during the rainy season, benefiting buyers, said FEWS NET.

In Niger on 15 October, the government convened food security agencies to “harmonize harvest figures”, pledging to take “appropriate” measures following the analysis.

In a presentation to a national working group on emergency agro-pastoral interventions on 7 October in Niger’s capital Niamey, international agencies questioned the government’s early assessment of the 2009 harvest as “average to good”, pointing out the shortened growing season.

Nigeria’s Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) has warned 11 northern states to start contingency stockpiling and planning responses with partners, NEMA head Mohammed Audu-bida told IRIN.

In addition to boosting public grain stocks and preparing for food insecurity, responding to perennially high levels of malnutrition should be an equally high priority for policy-makers, said Scicchitano.

aj/pt/aa/bb/cb source.irinnews.org