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High Food Prices Loom, USAID Warns Nigeria, Others

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2 years ago

August 4, 2023

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The United States Agency for International Development has warned Nigeria and other African countries to brace up for higher food prices, following recent developments that have temporarily halted Ukraine’s food exports to African countries.

USAID’s Deputy Administrator for Policy and Programming, Isobel Coleman, said this on Thursday at a virtual press conference.

According to her, Russia’s decision to withdraw from the Black Sea Grain Initiative had already begun to trigger higher food prices around the world.

She noted the impact of this food price hike would be more felt in developing countries that were import-dependent, and had conventionally relied on grain imports from Ukraine.

Coleman said, “One of the world’s largest breadbaskets is Ukraine. By doing this, Russia is increasing food prices globally. We’ve already seen how global food prices came down over time after the Black Sea Grain Initiative came into place. Since Russia has pulled out of the agreement, food prices have again been on the rise.

“This affects every country around the world, but it affects, most acutely, large import-dependent developing countries that have to spend much of their precious foreign exchange resources to purchase food to feed their population.”

The Black Sea Grain Initiative was conceived to specifically allow for commercial food and fertiliser (including ammonia) exports from three key Ukrainian ports in the Black Sea, which are Odessa, Chornomorsk,

The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, led to a complete halt of maritime grain shipments from Ukraine, previously a major exporter via the Black Sea. Additionally, Russia temporarily halted its grain exports, further exacerbating the situation.

This resulted in a rise in world food prices and the threat of famine in lower-income countries such as Nigeria, and accusation that Russia was weaponising food supplies.

To address the issue, discussions began in April 2022, hosted by Turkey (which controls the maritime routes from the Black Sea) and supported by the UN. The resulting agreement was signed in Istanbul in July 22, valid for a period of 120 days.

With ratification of the initiative, food prices which had increased significantly, began to decrease. However, on July 17, 2023, the deal expired, and Russia refused to renew it on the ground that global sanctions were blocking its agricultural exports.

According to Coleman, Russia’s withdrawal from the initiative, which in principle, prevented Ukraine from exporting grain to Nigeria and other developing countries, would have dire consequences of food security in these countries.

Through the initiative, she said, Ukraine was able to export 33 million metric tonnes of food, 65 per cent of which went to developing countries, while 20 per cent went to the least developed countries.

According to a report by United Nations Comtrade, Nigeria imported about $500m worth of grain from Ukraine in 2021; showing the termination of the Black Sea Grain Initiative inevitably spelt higher food prices.

Russia, on its part, had promised to fill the space arising from Ukraine’s inability to export its grain, but USAID remained adamant that the Kremlin, which was trying to capitalise on a crisis it had engineered, was not equipped to fill this void, nor should it be allowed to.

Speaking further, Coleman said, USAID was already making plans to explore alternative means through which Ukraine could export its grain without the current hindrances surrounding the conventional maritime route (Black Sea).

She also noted that in the wake of the last food crisis which rocked global food security, the US government had made substantial investments via its ‘Feed The Future’ campaign, to make developing countries more resilient to food crises.

She added, “We have invested in more than 40 countries across Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Carribean. We have 20 target countries that have high levels of poverty and hunger and also a strong potential to drive economic growth and transform food systems.”

The Assistant Administrator in the Bureau for Europe and Eurasia, Elizabeth McKee, who also spoke, described the situation as dire, especially in light of Russia’s announcement that henceforth, any ship heading towards Ukrainian ports would be viewed as military targets.

According to her, in the last nine days, 26 port facilities and infrastructure had been hit by the Russians, while five civilian vessels had been targetted, and 180,000 tonnes of precious grain crops destroyed.

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Drivers Mount Handmade Cooling System On Top Of Taxi To Replace AC

Published

9 hours ago

August 9, 2025

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Due to the fact that car air conditioning systems break down too often as a result of excessive heat and repairs are too expensive, taxi cab drivers in Afghanistan often turn to handmade roof-mounted rudimentary systems in order to cool the inside of their vehicles.

Driving through Kandahar, Afghanistan’s second-largest city, you’re likely to see taxi cabs with large rectangular boxes mounted on the roof and large tubes extending from them and into the vehicles, through a rear window or through a hole cut into the roof.

Blue taxi cabs were mostly seen with what they cobbled together and strapped to the roof with exhaust hoses delivering the cool air through the passenger windows of the cabs.

According to the Agence France Presse (AFP), they are handmade cooling devices meant to replace the cars’ built-in air-conditioning systems, which used to always break down when they are most needed and cost a fortune to repair.

According to the report, similar to industrial evaporative air cooling installations, these boxes can lower temperatures by 12 degrees Celsius through water evaporation. They are less noisy than air conditioning systems and consume way less power.

With temperatures often exceeding 40 degrees Celsius in the country during the summer months, taxi cab drivers have to get creative to keep passengers cool and these evaporative air coolers have proven very reliable and cheap for them to maintain.

One of the drivers was seen using sticky tape to attach the cooler’s exhaust vent onto the taxi cab’s window, while his assistant climbed the roof of the cab to fix the body of the unit to it and there is always the need to manually refill water in the unit twice a day in order to ensure continued cooling.

One of the drivers who carried out the idea was quoted as saying: “These cars’ AC systems didn’t work, and repairs were too expensive. So I went to a technician and had a custom cooler made. This works better than air conditioning. The ACs in our cars only cool the front. This handmade cooler spreads air throughout the car.”

In short, taxi cab drivers have cobbled together a creative solution to spare them and their passengers from the sweltering heat.
(TRIBUNE)

Headline

21 Die As Bus Carrying Mourners Crashes In Kenya

Published

19 hours ago

August 9, 2025

Editor

A bus carrying mourners from a funeral crashed in western Kenya on Friday, leaving at least 21 dead, an official said, a day after deadly plane and train accidents killed 14.

The latest deadly accident follows an aircraft crash near the capital, Nairobi, on Thursday, when an air ambulance came down in a residential area, killing six people.

The same day, local media reported that a collision between a train and a bus killed eight.

Friday’s incident happened at around 5:00 pm local (1400 GMT) in Kisumu County after a bus — believed to be returning from a funeral earlier that day, according to local media — crashed, Regional Traffic Commander Kisumu, Peter Maina, said.

“The vehicle lost control, veered, rolled onto the other side of the road,” he told reporters at the scene.

“We lost 21 persons, and amongst the 21 who lost their lives were 10 women, a girl aged 10, and 10 men,” he said.

Five people were seriously hurt in the incident, he said, among them an eight-month-old baby who was currently receiving care at a nearby hospital.

The cause of the crash was not clear, Maina said, adding that investigations were ongoing.

Local media reported the incident took place on a notorious section of road where accidents are frequent. The East African country has a poor road safety record, with fatal crashes reported daily.

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How False Claims Led To $500m mRNA Vaccine Contracts Cancellation

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20 hours ago

August 9, 2025

Editor

US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. cited false claims to justify terminating 22 federal contracts for mRNA-based vaccines, researchers said Friday, a day after the World Health Organisation called the decision a major blow.

Kennedy on Tuesday announced the cancellation of contracts worth around $500 million, marking his latest attempt to infuse vaccine skepticism into the core of US health policy.

Citing medical experts, disinformation watchdog NewsGuard identified a series of false claims about the vaccines –- credited with saving millions of lives during the Covid-19 pandemic — that Kennedy promoted to explain the termination.

Kennedy claimed that mRNA vaccines were responsible for “new mutations” of the virus, thus creating new variants that can prolong pandemics.

“Kennedy is mistaken in statements made when ceasing funding for mRNA vaccine development,” Stephen Evans, a professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, told the London-based Science Media Centre.

“No vaccine, including mRNA encourages new mutations.”

Kennedy also made two previously debunked claims about the effectiveness of the vaccines.

He stated that mRNA vaccines “fail to protect effectively against upper respiratory infections like Covid” and added that mRNA technology “poses more risks than benefits.”

Evans said the vaccines were “extremely effective against Covid, preventing deaths, hospitalisations and clinical or sub-clinical infection.”

“No vaccine has a zero incidence of side-effects, some of which can be serious, but the benefits of both mRNA vaccines and other types of vaccine –- lives saved and illness reduced — hugely outweigh the risks,” Charles Bangham, a professor of immunology at the Imperial College London, told the Science Media Centre.

On Thursday, WHO immunisation figurehead Joachim Hombach called the US decision to terminate the contracts a “significant blow.”

“mRNA vaccines are a very important technology and platform which has served us extremely well for Covid. We also know there is very promising work going on in relation to influenza vaccines,” he said.

Echoing those comments, US experts have warned that the funding cuts threaten critical research and public health around the world.

“This sets back vaccine science by a decade,” Andrew Pekosz, a professor of molecular microbiology and immunology at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, wrote on X.

“Of course they didn’t read the science or listen to the experts… if they did, they wouldn’t have made this decision.”

Kennedy, who spent two decades sowing misinformation around immunization, has overseen a major overhaul of US health policy since taking office.

He has fired, for example, a panel of vaccine experts that advise the government and replacing them with his own appointees.

In its first meeting, the new panel promptly voted to ban a longstanding vaccine preservative targeted by the anti-vaccine movement, despite its strong safety record.

He has also ordered a sweeping new study on the long-debunked link between vaccines and autism.

AFP