Today's violence infested world

Tens of thousands of people have been killed in Sudan's Darfur region. Over 200,000 have fled across the border to Chad. Millions more are homeless. Most are women and children, terrified while the fighting continues.
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Murders (per capita) (most recent) by country

Showing latest available data। countries and
Rank .
#1
Colombia:
0.617847 per 1,000 people

#2
South Africa:
0.496008 per 1,000 people

#3
Jamaica:
0.324196 per 1,000 people

#4
Venezuela:
0.316138 per 1,000 people

#5
Russia:
0.201534 per 1,000 people

#6
Mexico:
0.130213 per 1,000 people

#7
Estonia:
0.107277 per 1,000 people

#8
Latvia:
0.10393 per 1,000 people

#9
Lithuania:
0.102863 per 1,000 people

#10
Belarus:
0.0983495 per 1,000 people

#11
Ukraine:
0.094006 per 1,000 people

#12
Papua New Guinea:
0.0838593 per 1,000 people

#13
Kyrgyzstan:
0.0802565 per 1,000 people

#14
Thailand:
0.0800798 per 1,000 people

#15
Moldova:
0.0781145 per 1,000 people

#16
Zimbabwe:
0.0749938 per 1,000 people

#17
Seychelles:
0.0739025 per 1,000 people

#18
Zambia:
0.070769 per 1,000 people

#19
Costa Rica:
0.061006 per 1,000 people

#20
Poland:
0.0562789 per 1,000 people

#21
Georgia:
0.0511011 per 1,000 people

#22
Uruguay:
0.045082 per 1,000 people

#23
Bulgaria:
0.0445638 per 1,000 people

#24
United States:
0.042802 per 1,000 people

#25
Armenia:
0.0425746 per 1,000 people

#26
India:
0.0344083 per 1,000 people

#27
Yemen:
0.0336276 per 1,000 people

#28
Dominica:
0.0289733 per 1,000 people

#29
Azerbaijan:
0.0285642 per 1,000 people

#30
Finland:
0.0283362 per 1,000 people

#31
Slovakia:
0.0263303 per 1,000 people

#32
Romania:
0.0250784 per 1,000 people

#33
Portugal:
0.0233769 per 1,000 people

#34
Malaysia:
0.0230034 per 1,000 people

#35
Macedonia, The Former Yugoslav Republic of:
0.0229829 per 1,000 people

#36
Mauritius:
0.021121 per 1,000 people

#37
Hungary:
0.0204857 per 1,000 people

#38
Korea, South:
0.0196336 per 1,000 people

#39
Slovenia:
0.0179015 per 1,000 people

#40
France:
0.0173272 per 1,000 people

#41
Czech Republic:
0.0169905 per 1,000 people

#42
Iceland:
0.0168499 per 1,000 people

#43
Australia:
0.0150324 per 1,000 people

#44
Canada:
0.0149063 per 1,000 people

#45
Chile:
0.014705 per 1,000 people

#46
United Kingdom:
0.0140633 per 1,000 people

#47
Italy:
0.0128393 per 1,000 people

#48
Spain:
0.0122456 per 1,000 people

#49
Germany:
0.0116461 per 1,000 people

#50
Tunisia:
0.0112159 per 1,000 people

#51
Netherlands:
0.0111538 per 1,000 people

#52
New Zealand:
0.0111524 per 1,000 people

#53
Denmark:
0.0106775 per 1,000 people

#54
Norway:
0.0106684 per 1,000 people

#55
Ireland:
0.00946215 per 1,000 people

#56
Switzerland:
0.00921351 per 1,000 people

#57
Indonesia:
0.00910842 per 1,000 people

#58
Greece:
0.0075928 per 1,000 people

#59
Hong Kong:
0.00550804 per 1,000 people

#60
Japan:
0.00499933 per 1,000 people

#61
Saudi Arabia:
0.00397456 per 1,000 people

#62
Qatar:
0.00115868 per 1,000 people


Weighted average:
0.1 per 1,000 people

DEFINITION: Total recorded intentional homicides, completed. Crime statistics are often better indicators of prevalence of law enforcement and willingness to report crime, than actual prevalence. Per capita figures expressed per 1,000 population.
SOURCE: Seventh United Nations Survey of Crime Trends and Operations of Criminal Justice Systems, covering the period 1998 - 2000 (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Centre for International Crime Prevention।

COMMENTARY :

Wilson Barón Calderón 27th March 2006
This figures are not updated, because Colombia has 18.111 homicides last year (2005), which means 39 per 100.000 inhabitants.I`m the Head of Criminological Investigation Center of Judicial Police, the office in charge of prepare all about criminal reports in Colombia.If you want, I can send the Colombian Crime report 2005, so you can update all your figures about my country.
Diethart 31st March 2006
UN-crime survey sates: "The statistics cannot take into account the differences that exist between the legal definitions of offences in various countries, of the different methods of tallying, etc.Consequently, the figures used in these statistics must be interpreted with great caution. In particular, to use the figures as a basis for comparison between different countries is highly problematic."
R.R 1st April 2006
Nation Master needs to update the stats.In 2005, Trinidad and Tobago, with a population of a little over 1m (1,070,000 according to the CIA Factbook) had 387 murders or 0.362 per 1,000.Up to March 2006, there have already been 110 murders in T&T, a trend that will eclipse the record 387 set last year.
Josh (Texas) 22nd May 2006
There is a bug with this list. The United States should be #1 up there. It's not even on the list. This definitely is not correct.
Matthew (Fla, USA) 29th June 2006
You must also remember that a large part of all the murders in the US come from hispanic gangs illegally entering and killing in gang warfare. Most of these murders are not home grown violence.
Brendel (Monterey, CA) 30th September 2006
Germany's homicide rate according to the BKA (German FBI) was 3.0 per 100k persons, not 1.16. The former includes all homicides (Mord & Totschlag), while the latter only seems to count murder.
Terry (South Africa) 26th October 2006
Cry The Beloved Country (Alan Paton)If only he could see it now.
Thaddeus Mozkimos (USA) 6th January 2007
India should be much higher on the per capita list:- many murders go unreported- many infant female deaths go unreported - that is children that are born, not abortions- many "kitchen fire" deaths go unreported
David (alabama) 29th January 2007
Although the US may not be perfect it is still one of the greatest countries to live in and be a part of otherwise we wouldnt have so many ilegals and foreign natives coming in to our country. So undoubtedly its not so pathetic.
Malik Shabazz (London,UK) 15th February 2007
In your list Murders (per capita) by country, where is Brazil surely its not 63rd I think you have missed out Brazil.
Finbar (Philly) 28th February 2007
Brazil isnt even on the list. Theres no way this list is accurate. Also the United States is above Georgia and Yemen. Thats impossible.
C Lynn (USA) 11th March 2007
There are so many unreported deaths of women in the Muslim nations makes your statistics unrealistic. You need a statistical model to include such data, and I think you will be shocked.
David Fontanez (Puerto Rico) 16th April 2007
Where is Puerto Rico in this list? Recently, the press here reported that we have the third highest violent murder rate in the world. Where are we?
Thomas L (Ann Arbor MI USA) 19th April 2007
For those that try to defend the murder rate of the USA saying we are still better than Irak and Afghanistan - you seem to be missing the point - we should try to compare ourselves to other civilized countries like Japan, Greece, Switzerland, Ireland, Norway. Stop making guns available to every nutcase at Walmart!
Ed Sanville (US/UK) 21st April 2007
Most of you seem to be completely misunderstanding this list. It's clearly only a sample of the countries on earth, not the "62 highest murder rates." Also, the US IS on the list, and NO it does not have the highest murder rate on earth, Josh from Texas. That distinction has gone to Colombia for a long time now.
Jose (Puerto Rico) 25th April 2007
David, PR is included in the stats for the USA. However as a lone nation we would be right after Jamaica. Not to mention a lot of the murders in PR "disappear" along with other crimes.
Tony (England) 16th May 2007
There are people in America (eg Matthew) who when they don't like statistics such as these will always blame illegal immigrants. I have seen the same argument used to explain poor infant mortality rates.
greg chimenti (usa) 22nd May 2007
What is Cuba's per capita murder rate? Percapita usually means per one hundred thousand. It would be alot easier to read your tally sheet if homicide was not listed per one thousand.
Eric (New Zealand) 9th June 2007
Actually per capita is per person (from caput = head). Anyway it's not so hard to move the decimal point!
Leandro (Brazil) 4th July 2007
Brazil should be in #5. It's about 25 murder per 100,000.
Mario (Croatia) 21st July 2007
I just wanna know where is Honduras beacuse as far as I know that hell of a dangerous country has murder rate over 150 per 100 000! And I'm not so sure about other information here. Colombia went second.
Michael Willis (USA) 11th September 2007
El Salvador should be number at least 2005 to present date. 61 murders per 100,000. The new census in 2007 counted 5.9 million, compared to the expected 7 million where they though they would be. The country is averaging 10 murders a day
Kan (SA) 19th September 2007
I think South Africa is the worlds most dangerous country I MEAN A WOMAN IN SOUTH AFRICA GETS RAPED EVERY 12 SECONDS.
Max (Canada) 28th September 2007
Josh from texas, you obviously have never been outside of the usa to see how bad the world really is. News from other nations is not broadcast in the usa except for a few things. Once you go outside of the usa, you will learn what violence, danger, chaos and terror really are, the usa only has a few areas that even come close to how a lot of areas in the rest of the world are every day.
Frank (NY, United States) 30th September 2007
Brian, Canada does have a good deal of oil, and they have lumber and uranium, so don't go around saying that they have no natural resources.
Sara (NM) 1st October 2007
Brian in Florida is obviously living in an altered state. Most murders in the US are attributed to domestic violence.
John (Connecticut) 6th October 2007
Its sad so many of my fellow Americans idealize their country and are afraid to take responsibility for its faults. We do definitely have a problem with murder rates that is directly correlated with our own problematic majority society- not immigrants.
Tomás (Panama) 17th October 2007
You should try to make a map with at least 2005 or 2004 data. Information for 1998 to 2000 isn't going to help you detect current trends in 2007 at all, for research or other reasons.
Guccio (Italy) 21st October 2007
REMEMBER READERS If there is a missing nation, that is because there is no data for that nationif all data was available then probably Somalia, Sudan, Iraq or Afghanistan will be number #1
B. (US) 22nd October 2007
Josh, the United States is number 24.It IS the highest of the most modernized, first-world post-industrial countries by a large margin, however, 4 per 1000 as opposed to the UK, Australia, Canada 1 per 1000. However, the population of the United States is much higher than these countries, which can skew statistics (believe it or not).
Veritas (Australia) 7th November 2007
Regardless of the statistics being discussed, I am very disappointed to see a few of the people on this site making comments that are agressive and contain swear words. It is not necessary to insult each other and perhaps good manners might be a way to start on the road to reducing the crime rate.
david (jamaica) 9th November 2007
The statistics come from data that the countries voluntarily report to the UN. Some countries don't bother and there may be countries with higher rates that haven't reported. Either way the ones in the top have a problem that needs to be helped
Tony (USA Az) 10th November 2007
If some demographic analysis were to be done on the US data and localized gang violence were separated out, the US data would reflect a very non-violent society, ranking with Ireland etc.
Josh (Baltimore, MD, USA) 13th November 2007
The City of Baltimore is rapidly approaching 300 murders for the year 2007 with a population of roughly 600,000. If you talk to any local police, they will tell you the numbers are far lower then the actual murder rate due to 'cooking the books'. That means their per capita rate is 0.5 per 1000 people. This would place the City of Baltimore between Columbia and South Africa, the top two countries in the world for murder rates.
John (New York. NY) 15th November 2007
Why wouldn't America have a very high crime rate (murder, rape,etc.) since many of the latest immigrants, illegal or not, come from the most dangerous places on earth.
Heheh (London) 20th November 2007
Baltimore's murder rate isn't far higher (or even higher) than official data Josh, stop making stuff up. On top of that you're forgetting that Colombia and South Africa have cities with far higher murder rates than their national average, so why compare Baltimore to the WHOLE of these countries?
Rao Gundala (Trinidad) 20th November 2007
Why Trinidad and Tobago is in the list. They do have lot of crime.
george (Glasgow, UK) 25th November 2007
The UK is really low on the list but if you split it into the home nations, England and Wales have like 0.7 per 100,000 whereas Scotland has 2.5 or something its the second highest in western Europe.
Iain (Glasgow) 20th December 2007
Actually the UK from the statistics above is 1.4 per 100,000 while the Scotland is 2.3 per 100,000 and that places Scotland around 34th, below 14 other European countries, not the 2nd highest as the last poster indicated.
ASHTON (WASHINGTON USA) 17th March 2008
I see some people sayin America should be number one, when dealing with figures. its facts so who ever is at number one is fact of the figures please think before you post comment.
Roy Sigurd Karlsbakk (Oslo, Norway) 13th July 2008
The murder rate mentioned here for Norway is high compared to that given by Norwegian police. 0.0106684 per 1,000 people * 4,750,000 / 1000 = 50.67. According to last year's statistics http://www.politi.no/pls/idesk/docs/f1537358626/drapsstatistikk2007.pdf 36,6 people have been murdered on average the last 10 years, and only 31,5 the last four years.
Jeff (Maryland) 30th October 2008
I have visited many message boards, but never have I seen anything near the collection of idiocy on display in the comments here.

Ritalin poses child crime risk

CHILDREN who use Ritalin for a long period of time could be more at risk of delinquency and substance abuse, a study has found.
Doctors are suggesting children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) should take a break from medication after three years of use.
An American study - published in the Medical Observer _ has found that while drugs such as Ritalin can initially help sufferers, the benefit of prolonged use is in doubt.
Some children stay on medication until they reach 18, but researchers believe it may not protect them from all the symptoms.
Has your child been adversely affected by ADHD medication? Tell us your experience via feedback section below.
The US Multimodal Treatment Study of Children revealed the more days of prescribed medication, the more serious delinquency became.
In a cohort of 500 children with ADHD - followed for 36 months until they were 12 - researchers found 27 per cent were at a greater risk of committing crime, compared with 7 per cent among "normative" children.
Substance use also increased to 17 per cent in ADHD children - almost double the normal rate.
More than 30,000 children in Australia take Ritalin or a similar drug.
Jill Sewell, Associate Professor of the Royal Australian College of Physicians, said evidence suggested a break from medication was beneficial.
"Evidence shows that there is very clear benefit of taking medication for 12-18 months, but after three years it is not so clear," she said.
"Often in medications you do have to stop for a period of time to see if it is still effective."
Belrose mother Leanne Komaromi said she took her son Dominic off Ritalin after four months.
"It made him a completely different person - it shut him down," she said.
"It was like someone had drawn the blinds on him."
The nine-year-old now uses the Dore program, which relies on exercise to treat symptoms.

FEMALE CIRCUMCISION

a tradition steeped in blood

Brian Brady reports on a police operation to protect more than 20,000 girls, some aged nine or younger, thought to be in danger of forced genital mutilation
Sunday, 22 June 2008

Police are to stage high-profile checks on flights to a number of African states in an attempt to stop young girls being taken abroad to be forcibly mutilated with the consent of their parents.
Research commissioned by the Department of Health suggests that more than 20,000 British girls are at risk of being forced into the agonising procedure, where all or part of their external genitals are cut off and stitched up. Officers will question all adults taking girls on certain flights, believing it is their best chance of saving thousands of children from female genital mutilation at the hands of tribal "elders" called in by their own families.
Moves to tackle the culturally sensitive issue will come as ministers from several government departments struggle to stamp out the ancient tribal tradition amid evidence that thousands of British girls are at risk from a ritual that is supposed to mark their transition into womanhood.
The campaign group the Foundation for Women's Health and Development (Forward UK) estimates that around 11,000 British-based girls aged between nine and 15 have undergone the ritual – in the UK or in their parents' home countries.
The study, the first to gauge the prevalence of the practice in Britain, concluded that at least 66,000 women already living in this country are victims of "female circumcision". Hospitals and clinics across the country have reported an increasing number of women showing evidence of the mutilation, which often has a devastating impact on their health and ability to give birth naturally.
Children as young as five are held down and cut, sometimes with razor blades or broken glass, in a ritual driven by a range of cultural demands, including a desire to demonstrate a girl's virginity on her wedding night. The practice, which survives mainly in 28 countries in East and West Africa, has been targeted as a fundamental human rights violation in recent years by the United Nations and individual states, including the UK.
The World Health Organisation estimates that up to 140 million girls and women around the world have suffered some type of genital mutilation, and around three million girls, most of them under 15, undergo the procedure every year. It is estimated that almost 175,000 women from countries that still practise the procedure now live in England and Wales.
Somalian supermodel Iman, who is married to David Bowie, avoided the mutilation thanks to her parents, who maintained that she had gone to a hospital to have the procedure done when, in fact, she was preparing to go to university. She has spoken out against the practice, like her cousin Waris Dirie. Ms Dirie, who suffered the procedure at the age of five, retired from modelling in 1997 to focus on her work against genital mutilation and was appointed Special Ambassador for the Elimination of Female Genital Mutilation by Kofi Annan, then UN Secretary-General.
She said of her ordeal: "I felt not complete with myself as a woman. Some days I felt so powerless."
Since 1985, Britain has passed two laws banning the practice, and social workers, teachers, police and health officials have been given training in how to recognise and treat victims and children identified as being at risk. But pressure groups and opposition politicians last night warned that the Government was not doing enough to tackle the issue, or even to investigate the true extent of the problem.
Labour MP Ann Clwyd, who pushed through a bill making it illegal to perform the procedure on a British citizen anywhere in the world, complained that it was "an absolute disgrace" that no one had been prosecuted under the new regulations. And Theresa May, the shadow Minister for Women, said the Government did not have an overall national strategy for stamping out the practice.
She said: "It seems this is an area where the Government thinks it could just put down legislation and that would sort it out. But we have had no prosecutions and, in the meantime, ministers have admitted to us that they have not issued any guidance to professionals on what action to take if they find someone who has been a victim."
Police and government officials admit that they are "disappointed" at the failure to prosecute anyone accused of carrying out or aiding and abetting genital mutilation. A £20,000 reward offered last year by the Metropolitan Police in partnership with the Waris Dirie Foundation failed to generate any prosecutions. Senior officers claim this demonstrates the ties of family and community loyalty that keep the practice underground.
However, Detective Sergeant Clare Chelsom, of Project Azure, an operation set up by Scotland Yard's Child Abuse Investigation Command specifically to deal with the issue, said she believed that police had managed to prevent a number of new cases.
She said: "The project has three separate strands – educating the communities and making sure they understand what they are doing to their daughters, raising awareness of the problem and finally enforcing the law against it.
"There is a problem in victims coming forward because reporting it means reporting on their own families. But the reports we have received have gone up from three to 33 since we launched our campaign last summer and we feel the interventions we have made as a result of these have protected young girls."
However, DS Chelsom admits that colleagues in some of Britain's biggest police forces remain unaware of the problem – despite evidence that health centres are seeing growing numbers of women who have been mutilated. Maternity clinics in Liverpool have identified 237 women who have suffered the procedure in the past three years. The city's Alder Hey children's hospital has also reported seeing young girls suffering complications after the mutilation.
Campaigners have warned that some families have flown "excisors" into Britain from their home countries specially to carry out the practice on their daughters, while many more have taken their children out of the country for the procedure.
Police are now planning to mount spotchecks on flights to destinations including Somalia and Senegal, beginning with a high-profile swoop on Heathrow airport next month to try to prevent girls being taken out of Britain to face mutilation. A senior Met officer said the operation, along with new training for airline staff, was the last chance to safeguard children being taken out of the country to undergo the mutilation.
Ms Clwyd, whose act increased the penalty for genital mutilation from five to 14 years' imprisonment, welcomed the attempt to protect girls from the "obscene practice" and she pledged: "I will be meeting with colleagues to discuss how to put more pressure on the authorities to bring these criminals to justice."
'I was five. It hurt so much that I thought I would die'
Brought up in a Muslim community in Senegal, Salimata Badji-Knight was circumcised when she was five. She now lives in London and works as an advocate for Forward in the UK.
"When it happened I was five, and I didn't even know this practice existed. I was taken off with my cousins and other girls that I knew – we thought that we were going to a party. I was reassured because so many people I knew were there. Then the atmosphere changed, and the adult women became more aggressive. They took one of the girls away, and I heard her scream – I was the 20th girl to be taken, so I heard that scream over and over again. I heard them saying 'No, don't cut me', but I didn't know what they were cutting.
"Then it was my turn. I didn't know what was happening, but it hurt so much I thought that I was going to die. They must have used a knife but I couldn't see it. It felt like having all of your nails ripped off at the same moment. There was no anaesthetic. Physically, it took a long time for me to heal. Every day when I have a shower I am reminded of the fact that I have been mutilated.
"We need to stop this practice; it is terrorising people for life. I visited my father and explained what had been done to me. He cried and vowed that no other girls in the family would have this happen to them.
"For a long time, I didn't want to talk about what happened to me, but if it will help one person to put down the knife, I'm happy to tell my story."

The World's Growing Food-Price Crisis - TIME

food distributed by the

Kenyan Red Cross in the

Mathare slum in Nairobi.

Rocketing food prices — some of which have more than doubled in two years — have sparked riots in numerous countries recently. Millions are reeling from sticker shock and governments are scrambling to staunch a fast-moving crisis before it spins out of control. From Mexico to Pakistan, protests have turned violent. Rioters tore through three cities in the West African nation of Burkina Faso last month, burning government buildings and looting stores. Days later in Cameroon, a taxi drivers' strike over fuel prices mutated into a massive protest about food prices, leaving around 20 people dead. Similar protests exploded in Senegal and Mauritania late last year. And Indian protesters burned hundreds of food-ration stores in West Bengal last October, accusing the owners of selling government-subsidized food on the lucrative black market. "This is a serious security issue," says Joachim von Braun, director-general of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), in Washington. In recent weeks, he notes, he has been bombarded by calls from officials around the world, all asking one question: How long will the crisis last?
The forecast is grim. Governments might quell the protests, but bringing down food prices could take at least a decade, food analysts say. One reason: billions of people are buying ever-greater quantities of food — especially in booming China and India, where many have stopped growing their own food and now have the cash to buy a lot more of it. Increasing meat consumption, for example, has helped drive up demand for grain, and with it the price.
There are other problems too. The spike in oil prices, which hit $103 per barrel in recent days, has pushed up fertilizer prices, as well as the cost of trucking food from farms to local markets and shipping it abroad. Then there is climate change. Harvests have been seriously disrupted by freak weather, including prolonged droughts in Australia and southern Africa, floods in West Africa, and this past winter's deep frost in China and record-breaking warmth in northern Europe.
The push to produce biofuels as an alternative to hydrocarbons is further straining food supplies, especially in the U.S., where generous subsidies for ethanol have lured thousands of farmers away from growing crops for food. "The area used for biofuels is increasing each year," says Nik Bienkowski, head of research at ETF Securities, a commodities-trading firm in London. To make matters worse, global stockpiles of some basics have dwindled to their lowest point in decades. Rice — a staple for billions of Asians — has soared to its highest price in 20 years, while supplies are at their lowest level since the early 1980s, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Meanwhile, the global supply of wheat is lower than it's been in about 50 years — just five weeks' worth of world consumption is on hand, according to the U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization.
As always in a crisis, there are winners. The creeping fear that the world might actually run short of food — no longer simply the stuff of sci-fi movies — has led speculators to pour billions into commodities, further accelerating price rises. In a single day in February, global wheat prices jumped 25% after Kazakhstan's government announced plans to restrict exports of its giant wheat crop for fear that its own citizens might go hungry. Jittery officials in India and Egypt are also restricting food exports. "Prices have risen at a much faster rate in the last few months," says Fazlul Kader in Dhaka, Bangladesh, where he coordinates rural projects for the U.N.'s International Fund for Agricultural Development; there, soybean oil alone has shot up 60% in a year.

The World's Growing Food-Price Crisis – A Crime Against Humanity

We are seeing a new demonic face of hunger in which people are being priced out of the food market. Sharp food price hikes are hurting the poor and sparking violent protest all over the world. This is happening against a global campaign against the production of Biofuels with the United Nations yesterday declaring it a Crime Against Humanity.

The World's growing food-price crisis.doc (46 k)The World's Growing Food-Price Crisis – A Crime Against Humanity.By Wilfred Alcock29 April 2008We are seeing a new demonic face of hunger in which people are being priced out of the food market. Sharp food price hikes are hurting the poor and sparking violent protest all over the world. This is happening against a global campaign against the production of Biofuels with the United Nations yesterday declaring it a Crime Against Humanity.Since 2004 world food prices have doubled around the world and agricultural prices have risen at alarming rates. This is devastating for the two billion poor people worldwide who live on less than $2 (R14.40) a day. Rice, a staple food for billions around the world, has soared to its highest price in 20 years, while supplies are at their lowest level since the early 1980s and at the end of 2006, grain prices were the highest they had been for decades.In China last year, eggs and meat increased by a whopping 50 percent and food prices have gone up by 17 percent in Sri Lanka, 16 percent in Pakistan & Indonesia and 10 percent in Russia and Latin America. Poor developing countries will be forced to cut food consumption and risk an increase in malnutrition, the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) warned way back in November last year. Sub¬-Saharan countries are most at risk and high food prices means it is increasingly difficult to meet the UN goals of hunger reduction.The re-balancing of food prices in relation to the price of energy is likely to cause severe social distress all around the world. Countries and cities that were rocked with mass protest in the recent past include Milan, Afghanistan, Egypt, El Salvador, Mexico City, Russia, Bucharest, Bukina Faso, Scotland, China, Croatia, Cameroon and India and all indications are that it will spread to South Africa.From Mexico to Pakistan protests by the poor have turned violent and in February 2007, tens of thousands of people marched through Mexico City in protest at a 40 percent rise in price of tortillas. These tortillas are made from corn and are the staple food of the poor.In Cameroon, a taxi drivers' strike over fuel price hikes turned into a massive protest about food prices, leaving around 20 people dead. Similar protests exploded in Senegal and Mauritania late last year. Indian protesters burned hundreds of food-ration stores in West Bengal last October, accusing the owners of selling government subsidized food on the lucrative black market.In Mahalla, 10 000 workers at Egypt's biggest textile factory embarked on protest action against price rises, demanding matching wage increases. Angry demonstrators set fire to two schools, a tourism company and a truck carrying subsidized food. 20 per cent of Egypt's population of 78-million live under the poverty datum line of $2 (R14.40) a day, with another 20 percent hovering just above. About 4 percent of Egyptians live in abject poverty.In El Salvador the retail price of staple foods have risen sharply with the prices of beans increasing by 68 percent between January 2007 and January 2008 in addition to price increases for rice (56.2 percent) and maize (37.5 percent). These are all basic staple diets of poor Salvadoran households. Russian milk powder prices have doubled this year and bread prices have rocketed in line with world grain prices.In February rioters tore through three cities in the West African nation of Burkina Faso, burning government buildings and looting stores. In the city of Bobo Dioulasso, 29 people have been sentenced from three to 36 months following these violent protests against high living costs.According to the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), nearly one million Lebanese, or 28.5 percent of the population, live on four dollars (R29) a day and with nearly 8 percent having to survive on 2.40 dollars (R17.28) a day. "This implies that almost 300,000 individuals in Lebanon are unable to meet their food and non-food basic needs," the UNDP said in a February report. Then there is climate change. Harvests have been seriously disrupted by freak weather, including prolonged droughts in Australia and the Southern African region with floods in West Africa. The past winter's deep frost in China and record-breaking warmth in Northern Europe have all contributed to the food crisis. The push to produce Biofuels, as an alternative to hydrocarbons, will further strain food supplies. Generous government subsidies for ethanol in the U.S. have lured thousands of farmers away from growing crops for food. South Africa has broken ranks with the South African Development Community with their approval of Genetically Modified Cultivars even though South Africa is party to the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Cartagena Protocol,There is enough food in the world for everyone but it is the pursuit of profit that stops people from having enough to eat. The working class and poor across the world are being forced to pay for this capitalist crisis. The price rises are a disaster for workers, the unemployed and poverty stricken communities around the world. Capitalist governments and the imperialist powers who are complete servants of the multinationals will not raise an eyebrow if not pushed by mass protest. These giant corporations are prospering and profiteering at an alarming rate in the environment of neo-liberal policies. One just needs to look at the South African government’s own neo-liberal policies and the flurry of political heavyweights baying to serve as non-executive Directors at multinational corporations and to profit from BEE steaks, as offered by capital, to understand the challenges the poor will face in our country for years to come. People across the world are becoming more frustrated at the escalating food prices and are more and more choosing to vent their anger at their governments.The more than doubling of food prices that has sparked mass protest around the world is now spreading to South Africa with COSATU, the biggest trade union federation, embarking on protest action. "They show that, once again, the poor are bearing the burden of inappropriate policies on inflation, combined with speculative food prices and a naïve belief in free markets in agriculture." said Vukani Mde a COSATU spokeperson.This situation was imposing "an intolerable burden on our people," Mr Mde said. For this reason, the union called on all its members and civil society to join in on "actions against food profiteering in the next few months." The Competition Commission in South Africa announced the formation of a crack team to investigate price fixing in the food industry.The average maize price increase in South Africa was 28 percent and sugar rose by 12.6 percent.What is the cause of the crisis? What should be done? Corruption, governments’ collusion with profit-hungry traders, food manufactures and multinationals coupled with drought and bad weather, high oil prices stocking transport costs, spiking bio-fuel demand and low reserves are the contributors to this malaise. The rising cost of oil is a major contributor to the food crisis, affecting the cost of production, transport and fertilisers. This is driving the switch to biofuel production, which is further exacerbating the grain shortages. George Bush recently signed an energy bill that will require the U.S. to double annual ethanol production by 2022. Bush again used his 2007 State of the Union address to propose a mandatory target for the replacement of about a fifth of oil-based transport fuels with 35 billion gallons of biofuels to be sold by 2017. Nearly a third of the corn output in the U.S this year will be used to make an estimated 9.3 billion gallons of ethanol.The race among western countries to produce this grain-based alternative fuel is responsible, in significant part, for the escalating food costs. The logic is simple: When countries put corn aside for energy, the amount available for food is in greater demand, and prices rise. If demand is already high, the effect is amplified. Climate change also plays a role as massive droughts and storms, such as a cyclone last year that destroyed $600 million (R4 320 million) worth of rice in Bangladesh, appear to be increasingly destructive.There is no long-term solution under capitalism, because the overriding interest of food manufacturers and distributors is profit. The working class and poor across the world are being forced to bear the brunt.There is no guarantee that governments will respond, but public attention can often illuminate otherwise ignored problems. In Pakistan and Afghanistan, as well as in Latin America and West Africa, millions are growing dissatisfied with their governments.In South Africa the government has a constitutional obligation, as expressed in the Bill of Rights, to ensure socio-economic rights for all it citizens, especially the poor. These rights include access to sufficient food, water and social security including social assistance for the poor if they are unable to support themselves and their dependants. The constitution prohibits the state from adopting retrogressive measures such as depriving the people of access to food and water. The government, through people driven campaigns, must be compelled to adopt laws, policies and programmes to fulfill these socio-economic rights of the people. The South African populace needs to be vigilant as the cabinet approved the development of an industrial biofuels strategy in late 2005 and released its draft strategy in late 2006. Biofuel developments are seen primarily as being in support of Deputy President Pumzile Mlambo Ngcuka’s Accelerated Shared Growth Initiative (AsgiSA), which aims to increase growth to 6 percent and perform a capitalist miracle to merge the First and Second economies. It puzzlingly suggests that job creation through the biofuels sector will achieve this and alarmingly claims that 55,000 new jobs will be created in rural areas.It is estimated that the very poor in South Africa spend over 62 percent of their income on food if they live in the rural areas and over 51 percent if they live in the towns. Even the middle income group spends a lot on food with 53 percent in the rural areas, 44 percent in the towns.The demand must be made for the government to swiftly implement policy measures that include (1) price controls on most staple food items, (2) the establishment a State-owned Commodity Marketing Board that must be the sole buyer of particular commodities and/or operate a guaranteed price/purchase scheme for others, (3) the sale of agricultural inputs/technologies, at subsidized prices, that lower input cost but contributes to higher yields and increased productivity and (4) a state entity for the production of some basic commodities.These policies and programme must allow for (1) market interventions to alter the food prices directly, (2) support to improve competitiveness of the agricultural sector and above all safety net interventions in support of poor households. The cry for the Basic Income Grant must grow louder and louder.Governments around the world must come under pressure from protest movements to fix food prices and even nationalise some food production. The organs of state, including parastatals, must implement and prioritise programmes to alleviate the plight of the poor and improve the quality of life of the people.. It remains that mass campaigns by organised formations of the people must force governments to act swift and ensure food security for the all.

there are 10000 people arrest in BANGLADESH

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'10,000' arrested in Bangladesh crime crackdown
Posted Thu Jun 5, 2008 5:48am AEST Updated Wed Jun 4, 2008 11:15pm AEST
Police in Bangladesh say they have arrested at least 10,000 people over the past few days in a major drive against criminal activity.
Leaders of the main opposition parties have complained that many innocent political activists have also been detained under the emergency laws.
Police chief Nur Mohammed said that this would be a month-long drive against crime.
The police, he said, are arresting those against whom there are specific allegations, cases or warrants - including smugglers and the owners of illegal arms.
Earlier he said that the force was targeting what he described as terrorists and extortionists. He denied that the arrests were in any way political, except that they are aimed at making Bangladesh more secure in the run-up to elections in December, when the army-backed Government has promised to restore democracy.
- BBC
Tags: law-crime-and-justice, crime, police, bangladesh