The tide could be beginning to turn in the battle to ease the plight of the one billion chronically hungry people throughout the world, writes Denis Lucey.

THIS weekend marks World Food Day (October 16) and UN Day for the Eradication of Poverty (October 17).

PRODUCING food to combat world hunger and under-nutrition among children was the focus of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation forum yesterday in Rome, Italy, as part of the UN’s World Food Day initiative.

Former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has warned that the global financial crisis cannot be used as “an excuse for inaction” in the worsening battle against “wrenching hunger” across the developing world.

COMMANDING a budget of €20 million for some of Africa’s poorest citizens is no easy task.

IRELAND’S commitment to helping to reduce hunger in developing countries will be reiterated today.

The leaders of Zimbabwe and Venezuela today denounced US President George W Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair as “unholy men”, and blamed the US and other developed countries for world hunger, pollution and war.

SINGER Ronan Keating was yesterday appointed a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation at a ceremony in Rome to mark World Food Day.