The US and Russia on Thursday blamed each other for the worsening food situation around the world as the war in Ukraine unfolds.
Washington called on Russia to allow exports of Ukrainian grain that is held up in Black Sea ports. Ukraine is one of the world’s top producers of wheat.
“Stop blocking the ports in the Black Sea. Allow for the free flow of ships and trains and trucks carrying food out of Ukraine,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said during a UN Security Council meeting organized by the US.
“Stop threatening to withhold food and fertilizer exports from countries that criticize your war of aggression,” he said.
“The food supply for millions of Ukrainians and millions more around the world has quite literally been held hostage by the Russian military,” he added.
Russian Ambassador to the UN Vassily Nebenzia countered by saying his country was being blamed for all of the world’s woes.
He said the world has long suffered from a food crisis caused by an inflationary spiral stemming from rising costs of insurance, logistical snarls and speculation on Western markets.
He added that Ukraine’s ports are blocked by Kyiv itself, which, he said, has placed mines along the Black Sea coast.
And Ukraine does not want to cooperate with shipping companies to free up dozens of foreign freighters that are blocked in port, Nebenzia said.
He also denounced Western sanctions against Russia, saying their consequences were worsening food insecurity around the world.
Blinken countered that “sanctions are not preventing Russia from exporting food and fertilizer.”
“Sanctions imposed by the United States and many other countries deliberately include carve outs for food, for fertilizer and seeds from Russia,” he said.
“The decision to weaponize food is Moscow’s and Moscow’s alone,” he said.
Serhii Dvornyk, a member of Ukraine’s mission to the UN, agreed.
“We demand that Russia stop illicit grain stealing, unblock Ukrainian seaports, restore freedom of navigation and allow trade ships to pass,” he said.
“About 400 million people throughout the world depends on grain supplies from Ukraine,” he added.
The country’s grain exports fell from 5 million tonnes per month before Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion to 200,000 in March and about 1.1 million last month, he added.
A day after the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres called on Russia to allow exports of Ukrainian grain, about 80 countries participated in the council meeting on Thursday, overwhelmingly expressing concerns about the risk of food shortages.
The pitch is a classic: A young celebrity with no climbing experience spends a year in hard training and scales Mount Everest, succeeding against some — if not all — odds. French YouTuber Ines Benazzouz, known as Inoxtag, brought the story to life with a two-hour-plus documentary about his year preparing for the ultimate challenge. The film, titled Kaizen, proved a smash hit on its release last weekend. Young fans queued around the block to get into a preview screening in Paris, with Inoxtag’s management on Monday saying the film had smashed the box office record for a special cinema
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
‘DISAPPEARED COMPLETELY’: The melting of thousands of glaciers is a major threat to people in the landlocked region that already suffers from a water shortage Near a wooden hut high up in the Kyrgyz mountains, scientist Gulbara Omorova walked to a pile of gray rocks, reminiscing how the same spot was a glacier just a few years ago. At an altitude of 4,000m, the 35-year-old researcher is surrounded by the giant peaks of the towering Tian Shan range that also stretches into China, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. The area is home to thousands of glaciers that are melting at an alarming rate in Central Asia, already hard-hit by climate change. A glaciologist, Omarova is recording that process — worried about the future. She hiked six hours to get to
The number of people in Japan aged 100 or older has hit a record high of more than 95,000, almost 90 percent of whom are women, government data showed yesterday. The figures further highlight the slow-burning demographic crisis gripping the world’s fourth-biggest economy as its population ages and shrinks. As of Sept. 1, Japan had 95,119 centenarians, up 2,980 year-on-year, with 83,958 of them women and 11,161 men, the Japanese Ministry of Health said in a statement. On Sunday, separate government data showed that the number of over-65s has hit a record high of 36.25 million, accounting for 29.3 percent of