IN THE DARK About World Hunger

No sign of this story in the US media; rather it comes from Xinhua, the Chinese news agency. You can judge for yourself source credibility. I have seen the same data elsewhere, so I have no problem with this coming from Xinhua. I'm curious only why there is not more talk about world hunger in our media.

The eradication of hunger depends on political will, (UN Food and Agriculture Organization chair Jacques) Diouf said, condemning the halving of rich countries' aid in the 1990s. Governments have to increase aid to the poor and those lacking land, he stressed.

Ah, political will. In other words, we have to care enough to actually do something. Yes. That appears to be a problem. But wouldn't we want to do more if we knew about the extent of the problem? Oh, yeah, I know. There are other stories, like the war in Iraq, that are more important than this story. These are stories that directly influence the lives of Americans, right here, right now.

UN data indicates that 852 million poor people are experiencing food insecurity, and 95 percent of them live in developing countries.

852 million. That's about one in every seven people in the world. One in every seven people in the world does not have enough to eat or is starving to death. And nearly all of these come from the "developing" (that is to say undeveloped) world. Where sweatshops, child labor, and forced prostitution thrive. Where hope dies, and despair -- just might -- turn into terror.

Maybe if we paid a little more attention to stories like this -- and had the "political will" to do something about it -- we wouldn't be so obsessed with this so-called "war on terror." Because there wouldn't be one.