Arnold Schwarzenegger has expanded his political lexicon into the time-honoured realm of bar-room vulgarity.

As an action hero, his catchphrases ranged from "hasta la vista" to "I'll be back". As a cigar-chomping legislator he branded "gutless" opponents "girlie men". Now Arnold Schwarzenegger has expanded his political lexicon into the time-honoured realm of bar-room vulgarity.
The California governor yesterday found himself attempting to play down the revelation that a blunt email he sent to one of San Francisco's Democratic Assemblymen contained what US news bulletins have somewhat prudishly described as an "X-rated rebuke".
At first sight, the message that Mr Schwarzenegger sent to Tom Ammiano, explaining why he'd vetoed a boring bill about financing the city's port, seems straightforward enough. It begins "for some time now", and concludes: "I believe it is unnecessary to sign this measure at this time." However, a vertical reading of the first left-hand letter in each of the seven lines of the main body of the email suggests that the former Kindergarten Cop actor, who is due to leave office next year, was passing on an altogether less statesmanlike message.

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The Governor's press secretary, Aaron McLear, insisted yesterday that it was simply a "weird coincidence" that the email had acrostically spelled out an obscenity. He claimed that the sheer volume of the vetoes that Mr Schwarzenegger has been forced to pass in recent years meant "something like this was bound to happen".
In recent months, Mr McLear noted, the left-hand margin of the Governor's veto emails has spelled out such harmless words as "poet" and "soap". That's as may be. But the claim met with a healthy dose of scepticism: the words cited by McLear are four letters long, a length relatively likely to crop up at random. The mathematical probability of the seven-letter phrase "fuck you" doing the same is 26 to the power of seven – or about 8,031,810,176 – to one.
Mr Schwarzenegger certainly has "form" for tasteless political gestures. This year, he sent a bronze statue of a pair of bull's testicles to California's Democratic senate leader, urging him to have the cojones to take tough budget choices.
Adding to suspicions that Mr Schwarzenegger was merely trying to goad Mr Ammiano is the fact that the duo recently enjoyed a very public falling-out. Earlier this month, they crossed swords when the Republican governor decided to show up, unannounced, at a Democratic party fundraiser that was being held at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco. Video footage of the event shows that Mr Ammiano began heckling about a string of budget cuts that had recently been passed in an effort to ease California's spiralling debt. He shouted "you lie!" before leaving the room hollering that Mr Schwarzenegger could "kiss my gay ass!"
Though Mr Schwarzenegger's obscenity caused much controversy on the airwaves, a spokesman for Mr Ammiano said that he was neither fazed nor offended by it. "Kudos to the governor for his creative use of coincidence," he said. "You certainly have to have a sense of humour in politics... We will call it even and start with a clean slate with the governor from here on out."

Sri Lankan-born billionaire is not the "ogre"

My coverage of Raj Rajaratnam, the Wall Street hedge fund manager accused of orchestrating a sophisticated insider trading ring with tipsters at firms such as IBM and Intel, has prompted an email from an acquaintance of the accused who says the Sri Lankan-born billionaire is not the "ogre" he is being made out to be.
Vijay Dandapani, chief executive of a budget hospitality company in Manhattan called Apple Core Hotels, writes to say that he was invited by Rajaratnam on a cricket trip a few years back and has since seen him "off and on" in New York.
"I do know Raj, though not well, and find it hard to believe that he is the ogre he is being made out to be," says Dandapani.
"All I can say with certainty is that I came away with the impression that he is a stellar individual on many counts, not least of it being probity on a personal level," he continues. "I do know others who know him far better who have recounted stories of his seemingly endless personal generosity while, at the same time, striving to keep his wealth and stature out of the social mix."
Rajaratanam was arrested alongside five others on October 16 and charged with 13 criminal counts of fraud and conspiracy, through alleged insider tips that produced profits of $20m for his Galleon Group hedge fund, which is winding down after an abrupt exodus of clients.In court papers, the department for justice said it swooped on Rajaratnam because the financier had become suspicious, correctly, that one of his associates was wearing a wire. The feds moved in as Rajaratnam was preparing to catch a flight out of New York's Kennedy airport to London, and then on to Switzerland.
The Rajaratnam camp argues that there was nothing fishy about this trip, and that he certainly wasn't fleeing justice. Those around him told Bloomberg News that he was heading to London to explore an AIM flotation of his hedge fund and to see a movie he had invested in, called "Today's Special", at the London Film Festival. His Swiss travel plans, according to sources close to Rajaratnam, were to meet investors in Geneva.
Rajaratnam, who is ranked by Forbes as the world's 551st richest man, is facing a litany of lawsuits. His business is liquidating and he has been accused by one group of litigants of channelling money to the Tamil Tigers in the country of his birth. We've not heard much of his side of the story yet. But this is proving to be an intriguing saga.

Bernard Madoff's $65bn (£40bn) Ponzi scheme has died

A Florida billionaire who was a top beneficiary of Bernard Madoff's $65bn (£40bn) Ponzi scheme has died, apparently by drowning in the swimming pool of his mansion in the exclusive seaside enclave of Palm Beach.
Jeffry Picower, 67, was found by his wife and housekeeper shortly after midday on Sunday. Emergency services were unable to revive him and he was pronounced dead at the Good Samaritan medical centre.
An accountant turned wealthy investor, Picower was a friend of Madoff's and was named in court papers as the biggest beneficiary of returns from the Wall Street fraudster's corrupt investment empire.
Although Picower insisted he was unaware of any wrongdoing, bankruptcy trustees for Madoff's firm sued him for $7.2bn earlier this year, claiming that he "knew or should have known" that his phenomenal payouts were fraudulent and that, at a minimum, he had "failed to exercise reasonable due diligence".
A suit filed by lawyers for the trustee Irving Picard claimed that Picower was receiving even greater returns than other investors, topping 100% some years, and that the money ought to be refunded for distribution to the fraudster's victims.
Picower's abrupt death is yet another tragic twist to the saga surrounding Madoff's record-breaking fraud, which has been blamed for at least two suicides among victims.
Palm Beach police said Picower's wife, Barbara, told emergency dispatchers she had "just found her husband at the bottom of their swimming pool".
Don Taylor, acting battalion chief for Palm Beach's fire service, told the Palm Beach Post emergency workers had been unable to revive him.
"We had no pulse and he was not breathing on his own," said Taylor. "We worked on him to try to stabilise him as best we could."
Picower's wealth was estimated by Forbes magazine at $1bn, putting him among the 400 wealthiest people in the US. He used to head a charitable foundation that gave money to educational and health-related causes, although this shut down after losing its endowment in Madoff's fraud.
A lawyer for Picower's family, William Zabel, said the billionaire had suffered from Parkinson's disease and "heart-related issues".
Picower consistently said his charity and his own personal finances had suffered from Madoff's crimes. But his withdrawals from Madoff's fund were viewed with suspicion after the fraudster's unmasking.
The bankruptcy trustee sifting through the remnants of Madoff's firm has taken an aggressive approach towards "clawback" from those to whom Madoff paid out gains.
In August, Picower described efforts to force him to hand back money as a "paradigm of excess", and his lawyers have said he was "in no way complicit" in corruption.
Madoff, considered the biggest fraudster in Wall Street history, is serving a 150-year sentence for theft, fraud and money laundering at Butner prison in North Carolina.

capital boost of 300 billion yen

Japan Airlines Corporation (JAL) is likely to suffer record losses amounting up to 5.5 billion dollars this year, according to newspaper reports on Thursday. The major causes for the losses are believed to be the costs pertaining to a major overhaul of the company which included a great deal of pay cuts as well.
The Yomiuri has said that a report presented by a taskforce appointed by the government to oversee the restructuring shows that the company would have to bear potential losses of 500 billion yen leading up to March next year. The task force has asked for a capital boost of 300 billion yen and a debt relief of 250 billion yen by means of a debt-waiver and debt for equity exchange scheme.
The newly estimated loss figure of 500 million yen is more than eight times the 63 billion yen deficit predicted in May, as demand fell due to the global recession and fear of swine flu. In the April- June quarter itself, JAL had suffered losses greater than 1 billion dollars. If the situation remains the way it is now, JAL may need another government bailout to remain in business.
According to reports in the Nikkei economic daily, the Transport Minister Seiji Maehara would request Finance Minister Hirohisa Fujii to save the airline by pumping in public money. The decision on this bailout and to rescue the airline is likely to be taken in a few days.
JAL had announced plans to reduce 6800 jobs last month, in addition to a huge reduction in routes and tying up with a foreign airline. As of now, JAL is seeking new loans amounting to 350 billion yen from both public and private backs.

Mr Roubini - like many other economists

Nouriel Roubini told the BBC that he is concerned about the growing gap between the "bubbly and frothy" stock markets and the real economy.
Over the last six months, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has risen about 45%.
But Mr Roubini says he sees an economy where consumers are "shopped out" and "debt burdened".
'Crisis not over'
Based on the run up in share prices in recent months, investors appear to be betting that good times are around the corner. A view not shared by Mr Roubini.
"The crisis is not yet over," the New York University professor said.
I think that there is a growing gap between what is the asset prices and the real economy
Nouriel Roubini
"I see an economy where the consumers are shopped out, debt burdened, they have to cut back consumption and save more.
"The financial system is damaged... and for the corporate sector I don't see a lot of capital spending because there is a glut of capacity."
Mr Roubini believes US house prices have further to fall, straining America's fragile recovery.
'Frothy markets'
Property prices have already declined sharply. According to the National Association of Realtors, the national median has dropped almost 13% from a year ago to $177,700 (£110,100).
Many believe the crises in the residential market could spread to the commercial real estate market causing more headaches for the banks.
So where does the "froth" in the markets come from?
Mr Roubini - like many other economists - believes it is engineered by the Federal Reserve and the government which has been pumping cash into the economy to dampen the pain of the recession.
"There is a wall of liquidity chasing assets," he said. "But I think that there is a growing gap between what is the asset prices and the real economy."
Although he thinks there will be a correction, he believes some of the mistakes of the past can be avoided if reforms are implemented .

Finance Minister Hirohisa Fujii made the remarks last week

The BOJ had been expected to say when it would begin withdrawing measures such as buying corporate bonds and offering low-interest loans.
It upgraded its view of the economy, saying it "had started to pick up".
There has been some pressure from the government to keep the stimulus going because the economy is still unstable.
'Too risky'
Finance Minister Hirohisa Fujii made the remarks last week, although he later stressed that it was up to the BOJ to decide what to do.
Comments from ministers "revealed the gap in views between the government and the Bank of Japan on corporate financing conditions," said Hirokato Kusaba, senior economist at Mizuho Research Institute.
"After that, the BOJ probably judged it was too risky to announce an end to corporate fund support now."
The current strength of the yen against the US dollar may also have encouraged the BOJ to delay its decision.
The stimulus measures had been expected to start being wound down at the end of the year, but some analysts have said they could now continue until March.

UK too is coming out of recession

The Office for National Statistics figures showed manufacturing fell 0.1% in the second quarter, which was half the amount previously estimated.
The rate of decline in construction was 0.8% instead of 2.2%, the ONS said.
Savings rise
ONS data also showed that people are saving more of their incomes than at any time in the past five years.
The household savings rate rose to 5.6% in the second quarter from 3.9% from the previous three months, its highest since 2003.
ANALYSIS

Stephanie Flanders, BBC economics editor
Coupled with other, more recent evidence, the GDP data adds to the view that the economy started growing again in the summer.
But the end of the recession does not necessarily spell a strong recovery. In fact, it reminds us that the economy could be battling headwinds for some time to come.
The rise in the household saving rate is a necessary - and welcome - adjustment. But obviously, that extra saving is money that isn't being spent in the shops.
There are also still only limited signs that the Bank of England's £175bn quantitative easing policy is reaching the broader economy. The Bank's preferred measure of the money supply rose by just 0.2% in August.
Mortgage approvals dip in August
The BBC's economics editor Stephanie Flanders said that although this was a necessary and welcome adjustment, given the levels of personal debt seen in recent years, it could affect the strength of any recovery.
"Obviously, that extra saving is money that isn't being spent in the shops," she said.
Recovery hopes
Several other countries, including Germany and Japan, emerged from recession in the second quarter.
Chancellor Alistair Darling suggested this week that the UK was approaching the end of its recession.
"Germany, France and Japan are showing signs of growth. Many independent forecasters now believe the UK too is coming out of recession," Mr Darling said on Monday.
"I think it is too early to say so with total confidence. But I stick with my Budget prediction that, as long as we continue to support the economy, recovery will be underway in the UK by the turn of the year," he said at the Labour Party conference in Brighton.
The year-on-year decline in GDP remained at 5.5%. It was revised from a fall of 5.6% last month.
Economists had expected the annual rate of decline to rise to a 5.4% contraction.
'Slow recovery'
"There is some good news in the mass of UK data released today, but generally the figures highlight the fragility of the economic recovery," said Vicky Redwood, an economist at Capital Economics.
"It still looks likely to be a long, slow recovery."
Separately, the CBI employers' body said in its distributive trades survey that UK retail sales rose unexpectedly in September.
The survey's respondents were also optimistic that sales would continue to increase next month.
QE progress
The official data comes as the Bank of England met economists from the City to discuss its policy of adding money into the economy is working - known as quantitative easing (QE).
The Bank initially had the authority to create up to £150bn on the balance sheet and surprised many by increasing the amount by another £25bn in August.
"I think it's great that the Bank is doing this," said Colin Ellis, a former senior economist at the Bank who attended the meeting, told the BBC.
Mr Ellis declined to discuss the details of the meeting.
"There are massive uncertainties over QE still, but it was very useful for me to understand the Bank's thinking on this."
"I went in quite sceptical about QE, and that view hasn't changed," he added.

Labour Minister Akira Nagatsuma

But the number of people unemployed hit a six-year high of 3.61 million in August, a figure which was up 32.7% on the same month of 2008.
Official figures also showed that household spending rose 2.6% in August from a year earlier.
Also on Friday, US figures for September showed 263,000 jobs had been lost, taking the jobless rate to 9.8%.
'Worst levels'
Analysts had been expecting the Japanese jobless rate to rise again in August.
"The unemployment rate fell earlier than expected, but we don't know yet whether it is just a dip for one month or something more continuous," said Masamichi Adachi, senior economist at JPMorgan Securities.
The quarterly Tankan survey of business confidence on Thursday had indicated that companies were feeling better than they had three months before, but that they still felt they had too much capacity and too many workers.
The number of workers employed in manufacturing fell almost 10% year on year, but the number employed in the care and hospitality sectors rose.
There was a cautious response to the figures from the government.
"The figures may give the impression that the situation has improved a bit," said Labour Minister Akira Nagatsuma.
"However, it continued to be around the worst levels in the post-war period."

5.3 percent of emissions

EDAYANCHAVADI, INDIA — Another piece of land was denuded around here last month. It started early on a Monday morning. A group of men, armed with shovels and saws, aided by a yellow excavator, cleared eight acres by a road. They cut down neem trees, acacia trees, palmyras and a couple of thick jackfruit trees.
About 40 trees were felled. By the time they were done, the land was a tangle of branches and dead leaves. A few wizened stumps and roots were left behind, strewn around the upturned earth like corpses.
I went looking for the owners of the land. I met one of them, a 44-year-old man named K. Murugayian, on a hot Tuesday afternoon. He told me, in a slightly sheepish but deliberate way, about why the land had been cleared.
He said the property had been in his family for over a century. His father — and his father before him — used to farm it, but then, about 15 years ago, it became harder to turn a profit from farming. Recently, the family was approached by a real-estate broker. He had some buyers in Chennai, about 160 kilometers, or 100 miles, away. The money offered was astronomical; Murugayian said it was more than five times what the family had been offered just a few years ago.
Murugayian and his three uncles, the four titleholders to the land, discussed the offer. One of his uncles was eager to sell; he was childless, getting old and having a hard time making ends meet. Murugayian said he wasn’t in a hurry, but he wasn’t complaining about the money. He had three daughters that he needed to marry off, his wife wanted a washing machine, and he was thinking of buying a car so his family could go on road trips.
Still, it wasn’t an easy decision. The land had been in the family for so long. Murugayian told me that when he saw the trees being cut, he felt like he was losing a part of himself.
This is how it is all around here now days: the rural economy is booming, development is sweeping over the South Indian countryside like a wave, and villagers are being forced into choices they would rather not have to make. Too often, it’s the environment — the trees and the water and the air — that suffers.
Down by the beach, unauthorized construction and a government-built port are eroding the coastline, changing the contours of the Bay of Bengal and disrupting fishermen’s livelihoods.
In the farms and fields that surround my home, farmers struggle with declining yields and land that is turning barren. Decades of chemical pesticides have reduced the fertility of the soil. A new generation of electric pumps has overexploited the water table.
Behind the village of Edayanchavadi, where Murugayian and his uncles grew up, a waste dump spews toxic fumes into the air. Some nights I smell the fumes in my living room. I know the air is filled with dioxins; I worry for my children.
India faces some of the most severe environmental challenges in the world. A government report published earlier this year estimates that 45 percent of the country’s geographic area suffers some form of land degradation; three million deaths a year are attributable to air pollution; and almost 70 percent of the nation’s surface water is contaminated.
According to the World Bank, environmental sustainability could represent the biggest obstacle to the nation’s development.
But the politics — and morality — of environmentalism in a country as poor as India are complicated. Indira Gandhi, a former prime minister, famously announced at the United Nations’ first environmental conference, in 1972, that “poverty is the biggest polluter.”
Those sentiments were echoed recently when Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh snubbed the U.S. secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton, by telling her in public that India could not accept binding carbon emission targets because doing so would stunt the nation’s economic growth.
It’s a widely held view in a country where the global environmental movement has sometimes been seen as a form of colonialism — a Western attempt to slow India’s development, to deny the country the fruits of industrialization enjoyed by the developed world.
The United States, with under 5 percent of the world’s population, accounts for more than 20 percent of total carbon emissions. India, with more than 17 percent of the global population, accounts for just 5.3 percent of emissions. Why, people ask, should India pay a price for the West’s profligacy?
It’s a fair question; the American and European positions have a whiff of hypocrisy. Still, when I see what’s going on around me — when I see how the farms are drying up, how forests and the coastline are disappearing, when I smell the dioxins in my house — I can’t help but feel that it’s a form of hypocrisy we had better learn to live with.
If we sacrifice nature at the altar of material progress and global fairness, we risk, as Murugayian put it to me, losing a part of ourselves. Poverty is a serious problem. But pollution, I’ve come to believe, is itself a form of poverty.
There’s a woman who lives in a village next to Edayanchavadi. Her name is R. Ponngavanam; she’s in her late 50s. She walks past Murugayian’s land every day on her way to work. She told me that the sight of the fallen trees made her sad. She was especially dismayed that so many neem trees were cut down. For her, as for many of her generation, neem trees are holy; they’re venerated for their medicinal properties.
She remembers, as a child, brushing her teeth with neem branches. When her children were injured, she would cover their wounds with neem leaves.
I asked why she didn’t voice her objections to the men clearing the land. She laughed. She said she was an old woman, and they were young. She said she was poor. She lived in a small house without running water. She said: “The landowners are rich now. I’m nobody. Who am I to say anything to them?”

DoFE stopped issuing work permits to new workers

Kathmandu (AsiaNews) – The number of Nepali migrant workers leaving for foreign destinations during the first 11 months of the current fiscal year is down by 10 per cent from last year. Departures dropped from 219,458 a year ago to 197,347. However, the number of jobseekers going to foreign lands by using personal contacts surged.
The trend of finding employment through personal contact had increased due to fear among manpower agencies caused by the global recession, said Mohan Krishna Sapkota, director general of the Department of Foreign Employment (DoFE).
Agencies “are afraid of sending fresh workers, and entertain only genuine demands from foreign employers,” Sapkota explained.
By contrast, departures because of personal contacts rose from 12,637 to 40,658 individuals, an increase of 234.99 per cent during the same period.
Manpower agencies complain that part of the problem is DoFE’s red tape, which is not the case for individuals who do it alone.
Nepalis are working in more than 50 countries. Qatar (68,844), Saudi Arabia (44,741) and Malaysia (31,157) top the list.
The current slump has especially affected migrant workers going to South Asia. For instance, the number of Nepalis going to work in Malaysia began declining in mid-August 2008 due to falling demand.
In January of this year the DoFE stopped issuing work permits to new workers after the Malaysian government announced it would stop recruiting foreign workers citing the worldwide financial crisis.
Nepal’s recent political crisis has also had an impact on migrant labour.
The resignation of Prime Minister Prachanda and the tug-of-war between the Maoist leader and President Ram Baran Yadav have weakened the government’s ability to protect the rights of Nepalis working abroad.
As fewer Nepalis go abroad to work less foreign money flows back into the country, and this is having a significant impact on the national economy.
For example, according to the Non-residential Nepalese Association (NRN), remittances by the almost seven millions Nepalis working abroad represent 40 per cent of the government’s annual budget.

the world saw dramatic spikes in food prices

The following post is from One Table, a Mercy Corps campaign to fight world hunger by investing in the world's women.
Today almost a billion people worldwide are unable to buy or grow enough food to avoid malnutrition. That's 120 million more than were hungry in 2006.
What happened? Basically, the world saw dramatic spikes in food prices. But there were many underlying causes of what's known as the global food crisis:
Drought and other climate-related problems that resulted in smaller harvests
Changing diets — rise of the middle class in India and China and an increased demand for food, especially meat, which requires large amounts of grain to raise
Diversion of crops from food production to the production of biofuels
High fuel prices during 2008 — if it costs more to transport food, prices go up
Declining investments in agricultural productivity — total agriculture development aid to poor countries plunged from $8 billion in 1984 to $3.4 billion in 2004. At the same time, the developing world's cities have been ballooning with people who do not grow any of their food
Export bans and restrictions last year in several major grain-producing countries like China as governments sought to lower food prices for their own citizens, with the result of reducing the global supply on hand.
While food prices have come down from their highs of 2008, they remain substantially above historic levels. Many economists feel this trend, which most severely affects those who can least afford it, is likely to continue for some time.
The economic, health and societal costs of the global food crisis have been severe. One of the first things Mercy Corps did to figure out how and where to direct our efforts was to survey the communities where we work. We discovered that within communities Mercy Corps serves, roughly 70 percent of income is spent on food, and 80 percent of the population had been affected by rising food prices over the past year. The survey also confirmed something we already suspected: that families were coping with higher prices by eating fewer meals, selling off household belongings, going into debt and removing children from school so that they can work.
In addition to being a record year for food prices, it's also been a record year for our food security team, allowing Mercy Corps to aggressively respond to this crisis. We now have 17 programs in 13 countries designed specifically to respond to this on-going problem. Through support from donors including USAID, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Gap Foundation, the Hunger Site, and private individuals, our Food Crisis Response employs a strategy designed to ensure that the groundwork for increased prosperity in the future is laid — even while addressing the immediate problem of accessing sufficient food.
Food distributions, much of which are specifically targeted to improve child nutrition, are taking place in Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Zimbabwe. Meanwhile, in the Central African Republic, India, Indonesia, Liberia, Nepal, Niger, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Uganda and again Zimbabwe, Mercy Corps is helping hungry households to access food by providing employment opportunities, agricultural training and inputs (such as seeds and tools), and helping people establish and grow small businesses.
Combined, these programs are reaching almost 1.5 million individuals who have been directly impacted by higher food prices. Overall, Mercy Corps’ Crisis Response will lead to a sustainable increase in income for these people, leading in turn to greater food security over the long-term.

Worldwide recession has pushed 100 million

18 September 2009 – The global economic crisis continues to push millions of the world’s most vulnerable people into poverty, hunger and early death, a new United Nations report warns, stressing that “green shoots” of recovery are not being felt by the poor in the developing world.
Estimates suggest that the worldwide recession has pushed 100 million more people below the poverty line and 61 million people have been added to the number of jobless over the last two years, according to the report.
“The ‘near poor’ are becoming the ‘new poor,’” Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro told reporters in New York at the launch of the Voices of the Vulnerable: the Economic Crisis from the Ground Up report.
“Workers in both the formal and informal sectors are being badly hit, particularly in manufacturing, commerce and construction,” said Ms. Migiro, before quoting one construction worker who said that the “monster” economic crisis is “devouring the poor.”
She added that migrants are finding their situation increasingly precarious, with forecasts predicting that remittances to developing countries will be reduced by over seven per cent this year.
“Youth unemployment is dramatically increasing,” Ms. Migiro stressed. “The number of unemployed youth has increased by as many as 18.2 million over the last year.”
In addition, the report – part of a new UN initiative to monitor and draw attention to emerging crises – notes that an increase of 100 million people suffer from hunger and infant mortality rates are set to rise by an additional 200,000 to 400,000 deaths each year from now to 2015, if the crisis persists.
“Many of the poor and vulnerable are running out of coping strategies,” said Ms. Migiro. “They are being exhausted by crisis after crisis,” including the global food and fuel price hike crises that struck last year, on top of local floods, droughts and conflicts.
The crises may have long-term consequences, with tens of millions of children suffering from cognitive and physical injury caused by malnutrition as a result of the food and economic crises.
Ms. Migiro warned that the spread of the H1N1 influenza pandemic to countries already devastated by the economic crisis, or the onset of new natural disasters, are among the last straws that may “break the back of overstretched populations and governments.”
The report is part of larger UN initiative called the Global Impact and Vulnerability Alert System (GIVAS), developed to provide early, real-time data to the international community on how external shocks, such as the economic crisis, are affecting the welfare of the vulnerable and poor.
The Secretary-General is slated to present the report to the annual high-level debate at the General Assembly in New York next week, which takes place ahead of the summit in Pittsburgh, United States, for the Group of 20 (G20) leading economic nations.
Both forums will address the impact of the ongoing economic crisis, with the report underscoring the need to protect not only the poor and vulnerable but also the increasing number of middle class families slipping into poverty