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Progress on food security issues will only come when we begin to ask the right question and challenge the myths that trap us.
by Frances Moore Lappe

News broadcasts report a horrific “world food crisis.” But there is no food shortage. In fact, there’s more than enough food to make us all chubby—even counting only the “leftovers,” what remains after turning more than a third of the world’s grain and fish catch into feed.

The forecast for world cereal production in 2008 stands at a record 2,164 million metric tons, says the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization. That’s an increase of 2.6 percent over last year, the previous global high.

Again: The shortage is not of food. It is one of democracy. At its heart, democracy means power distributed so that citizens’ interests—our values and our common sense—show up in policies.

Yet, can you imagine citizens anywhere setting things up so that just one company, controlling a huge share of the entire world’s grain trade, could enjoy a 65 percent profit surge last year, while at the same time food price hikes are pushing 100 million more people into poverty and hunger? (The most recent quarterly Archer Daniels Midland profit surge came largely from the company’s financial division that makes money on price volatility via commodity futures trading.)

Or think about this: In a world where even before this historic price climb almost a billion people couldn’t afford enough to eat, what citizen would say, “Why don’t we start shifting prime farmland into agrofuel production and push prices still higher!?”

Neither could happen if citizens had real power. Each violates our common sense and our hardwired human need for fairness.

So this crisis makes me ask: Why are we playing Monopoly when we could be living democracy? In today’s deadly global Monopoly game, the biggest money players get ever bigger while most others get progressively knocked out of the game. We’ve seen it in the housing market and now we’re seeing it in the food market. In this game, what does growth mean? The 1990s saw considerable economic expansion, but for every $100 in growth only 60 cents went toward ending poverty. In Monopoly, after many long hours the game finally ends, and all but one player goes to bed “broke.” Everybody’s had fun. But in real life, it’s not fun. The outcome is premature death for millions of our fellow humans.

FOR 40 YEARS I’ve been asking why it is so hard for humans to see the needless misery we’re generating. Gradually I came to see that in large measure the answer is the power of ideas. One very dangerous idea perpetuating our global democracy crisis is this: We humans are so flawed that we have to turn over our fate to an infallible, almost mystical force: The Market. The danger is that this idea leaves us feeling powerless. We’re blind to the obvious fact that left to its own devices, unguided by democracy, a market inexorably concentrates wealth and power so tightly that it infects political decision-making. So we end up with, in effect, “privately held” government.

The result? Hunger-generating policies that no assemblage of real citizens would dream up.

For several decades, for example, countries in the Global South were encouraged by international lending, aid, and trade agencies to let go of the goal of food independence. While in the North many extol the goal of oil independence, comparable food independence was somehow deemed a bad idea. Aid was often proffered on conditions that undermined local producers. In 1986 John Block, Ronald Reagan’s agriculture secretary, called the idea of poor countries feeding themselves an “anachronism of a bygone era.”

Within a generation, countries in the Global South that had been food exporters became massive food importers. And today, as food prices jumped by almost half in nine months, poor people are living—or, more accurately, dying—from the consequences of this disastrous policy.

Peeling away the layers to grasp the roots of needless hunger, we find them in people’s lack of power—the lack of capacity to act on our values and in our interests. If hunger results from extreme power imbalances in human relationships, the questions before us are:

How do we empower more and more people, starting with ourselves?

How do we reshape relationships so everyone has the power to live in dignity and to meet their needs?

Through this new lens, removing the influence of money in political decision-making is not a separate political matter; it is essential to ending hunger on this abundant planet. In the past decade, for example, U.S. agribusiness spent almost $1 billion lobbying our government for policies, including massive farm subsidies, that are in many cases undermining poor people’s capacities to feed themselves. Such subsidies, for example, undermine smallholders, from corn growers in Mexico to cotton growers in Mali.

Many Americans have given up on reclaiming democracy from moneyed interests. They should not. It can be done; it is being done. We must crack open the best-kept secret in America: that public financing of elections is working statewide in three states. We can take that success national. (Visit www.just6dollars.org.) Simulta­ne­ously, we can get behind candidates in this election year who commit to shifting support to family-scale sustainable farmers in all aid and trade legislation, domestic as well as in foreign, and who are willing to halt the deadly agrofuel program. (One third of U.S. corn production will go to ethanol this year.)

Through the lens of remaking power relationships, we also see food as a right of citizenship, one now inscribed—either for all citizens or for children—in 22 national constitutions. We know how to make this right real. And we can build on the proven anti-hunger policies of progressive taxation, a legal minimum wage that is a living wage, anti-monopoly enforcement, and protection of the rights of trade unions. In the same vein, we can back policies that encourage producer and consumer cooperatives, the kind that already create more jobs worldwide than do multinational corporations.

To prevent future crises, we can embrace the goal of food independence, as much as possible, at both the local and national levels. For how can any people feel free if they remain at the mercy of international market vagaries and mani­pulation?

Today’s food price rises are predictable outcomes of policies flowing from decades of anti-democratic decision-making. Each of us can explain to our friends, neighbors, co-workers, and legislators that our crisis is human-made. Food scarcity is a myth; the deeper scarcity is of democracy. And we can spread the good news, too, that we each have the power to be part of creating real, living democracy.

Frances Moore Lappé, cofounder of the Small Planet Institute, is the author of 16 books, including, most recently, Getting a Grip: Clarity, Creativity, & Courage in a World Gone Mad.

The perils that African immigrants face as they try to cross the unforgiving Atlantic have again been highlighted. At least six lost their lives as a boat carrying 59 people tried to reach the Canary Islands last Friday. They were found dead as their boat docked on the Santiago beach in Alajero on La Gomera. The previous Wednesday, 15 immigrants, includng nine children, lost their lives off the Almerica coastline.

The authorities believe there could be as many as 6,000 immigrants waiting to do the crossing in search of a better life despite the treacherous conditions they would have to face. Another cayuco boat carrying 66 immigrants was also intercepted just a short distance from Puerto Colón on Tenerife. Three of the occupants had to be taken to hospital. There were two children among the 66 passengers, as well as three women.
Two days before, a small boat packed with at least 148 African migrants landed on a beach on the south coast.
The flimsy fibreglass vessel arrived at La Tejita beach as windsurfers were preparing to take to the sea. They, and tourists, alerted the police.
The occupants had tried to run inland when spotted but were rounded up and detained. One man, who was dehrydrated and suffering from hypothermia, collapsed on the beach and was taken to hospital.
Guardia Civil sources and several Non-Governmental Organisations have estimated that there are as many as 6,000 people from the Sub-Sahara area who are waiting; 2,000 in Mauritania and 4,000 in Morocco, to find an illegal crossing on a boat to Spain.
The travellers journey starts in countries such as Senegal, Cameroon, Nigeria or Mali, and the longer Mauritanian route is favoured by some as there is no repatriation agreement in place with Spain.

Nearly 100 people have fallen victim to mass hysteria, a temporary psychiatric illness, in Bangladesh, the Independent newspaper reported Tuesday. The endemic illness broke out in the southwestern district of Jessore, 164 km southwest of the capital, between July 2 and July 7.

A total of 70 students were admitted to hospital.

Mass hysteria became rampant in the country last year with several hundred people suffering from it. Most of them were students.

Mass hysteria usually affects specific groups, mostly students aged between 13 and 25, and is usually accompanied by headache, convulsion and loss of consciousness.

The disease spreads quickly from one person to another.

Experts say anxiety and worry are the two main precipitating causes of the psychological problem, which is aggravated by malnutrition, tension and lack of tolerance.

A girl accuses the officer who killed a 20-year-old Irishman during a recent burglary call.

A cop from Silverton who fatally shot an Irish national while making a burglary call two weeks ago was jailed early Sunday on charges that he sexually abused an underage girl.

The allegations surfaced Saturday, when a woman and her daughter dropped in to the Keizer police station, accusing Silverton officer Tony Gonzalez, 35, of sexually abusing the girl on multiple occasions.

Authorities declined to identify the girl, other than to say she was younger than 18. They provided no details about when or where the sexual incidents allegedly occurred.

Gonzalez was held on two counts of sexual abuse in the first degree, a felony that carries a 75-month minimum sentence, and three counts of third-degree sex abuse.

The officer remains on administrative leave from the Silverton Police Department pending the outcome of an investigation into the June 30 shooting of Andrew “A.J.” Hanlon. The 20-year-old Irishman, described by family members as mentally disturbed, had lived with his sister for about a year in the town east of Salem.

Gonzalez was responding to a burglary call when he spotted Hanlon, yelled a warning, then shot him to death. Authorities have declined to release details of the incident.

Hanlon’s brother-in-law, Nathan Heise, has said the young man had a habit of banging on their door when he wanted to be let in. Heise and his wife believe that Hanlon had mistakenly gone to the wrong house, startling the residents and prompting the call to police.

Marion County Deputy District Attorney Matt Kemmy, the prosecutor handling the official investigation of the shooting, said he expects to present the case before a grand jury in the next two weeks. That panel will decide whether the shooting of Hanlon was justified.

Kemmy, who suddenly found himself looking into the sex-abuse charges against Gonzalez on Saturday night, said the two cases are unrelated. It was happenstance, he said, that the girl stepped forward with her allegations against Gonzalez after news media carried accounts of Hanlon’s shooting.

“It will be more clear as time goes on,” he said, but the two cases “are independent.”

Silverton police declined comment Sunday about the allegations Gonzalez faces, but police are expected to issue a statement today.

Hanlon’s family, intrigued by news of Gonzalez’s arrest, referred comments about the development to their Portland lawyer, Kelly Clark.

“It would be odd to say this morning’s developments don’t change anything, because they raise all kinds of questions,” Clark said on Sunday. “But we just think now is not the time for us to be asking questions or making public comments.”

Hanlon’s family, which wept through his funeral in Silverton on Saturday afternoon, will wait until the district attorney’s office and Silverton police conclude their investigations of the young man’s shooting, Clark said.

“Let’s assume the officer is charged with some sort of a crime in the shooting of A.J.; that’s going to leave them — the family — with one set of reactions,” Clark said. “If nothing happens, or the response comes back that the authorities believe he was fully justified, then the family will be probably in a completely different frame of mind.”

Gonzalez was held for a little more than an hour in the Marion County jail early Sunday before he was taken to Polk County and booked into jail there.

“It was for his safety,” said Polk County communications supervisor Ian Wilson. “He had made arrests in that county and it wouldn’t be safe for him to be in Marion County Jail.”

Kemmy said he will file a district attorney’s information against Gonzalez today, which will formally charge him with sex abuse. The prosecutor said he expects to take the allegations before a grand jury sometime before July 22.

Gonzalez will be arraigned Tuesday in Marion County Circuit Court and “will not have an opportunity to make bail until arraignment,” said Marion County Sheriff’s Office Commander Jason Myers.

Just two days ago, Gordon Brown was urging us all to stop wasting food and combat rising prices and a global shortage of provisions.

But yesterday the Prime Minister and other world leaders sat down to an 18-course gastronomic extravaganza at a G8 summit in Japan, which is focusing on the food crisis.

The dinner, and a six-course lunch, at the summit of leading industrialised nations on the island of Hokkaido, included delicacies such as caviar, milkfed lamb, sea urchin and tuna, with champagne and wines flown in from Europe and the U.S.

But the extravagance of the menus drew disapproval from critics who thought it hypocritical to produce such a lavish meal when world food supplies are under threat.

On Sunday, Mr Brown called for prudence and thrift in our kitchens, after a Government report concluded that 4.1million tonnes of food was being wasted by householders.

He suggested we could save up to £8 a week by making our shopping go further. It was vital to reduce ‘unnecessary demand’ for food, he said.

Last night’s dinner menu was created by Katsuhiro Nakamura, the first Japanese chef to win a Michelin star. It was themed: Hokkaido, blessings of the earth and the sea.

But Dominic Nutt, of the charity Save the Children, did not approve.

‘It is deeply hypocritical that they should be lavishing course after course on world leaders when there is a food crisis and millions cannot afford a decent meal,’ he said.

‘If the G8 wants to betray the hopes of a generation of children, it is going the right way about it. The food crisis is an emergency and the G8 must treat it as that.’

In 2005, at the G8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, world leaders promised to increase global aid by £25billion a year by 2010 and raise aid to Africa, the world’s poorest continent, by £12.5billion. But the bloc of rich nations is only 14 per cent of the way towards hitting its target.

Britain is meeting its commitments in full, but other countries are understood to be dragging their feet - and there are fears the figures on global aid could be watered down.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Italian leader Silvio Berlusconi, who face pressure to cut spending at home, are understood to be leading the charge to weaken the Gleneagles proposal.

Tory international development spokesman Andrew Mitchell said: ‘The G8 have made a bad start to their summit, with excessive cost and lavish consumption.

‘Surely it is not unreasonable for each leader to give a guarantee that they will stand by their solemn pledges of three years ago at Gleneagles to help the world’s poor.

‘All of us are watching, waiting and listening.’

A World Bank study released last week estimated that up to 105million more people, including 30million in Africa, could drop below the poverty line because of rising food prices.

Yesterday the European Union agreed to channel £800million in unused European farm subsidies to African farmers, as part of its response to the global food crisis.

‘The EU really can give a boost to agriculture in developing countries,’ Jose Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, told the meeting.

The money will be used to buy seed and fertiliser and fund agriculture projects in Africa.

The meal was served at the Windsor Hotel, on the shores of Lake Toya, where the presidential suite costs £7,000 a night.

Japan has spent a record sum of money and deployed about 20,000 police to seal off the remote lakeside town of Toyako for the three-day talks.

Cases of what doctors call hysteria, and which Coast residents believe are ghost attacks, have increased.

Last year, ‘ghosts’ attacked Mbaraki Primary School. Then Mombasa Mayor Sharrif Shekue rushed to the school with two goats - a black and a white, which were sacrificed in the school compound to ‘appease the spirits’.

But Muslim and Christian parents opposed this, saying only superstitious people allowed sacrifices in schools. The incident made many parents withdraw their children from the school, leading to suspension of learning for some days.

At least two to four cases of ‘ghost attacks’ that lead to indefinite closure of schools have been reported every month this year.

Belief in superstition

Experts, however, say apart from biological and environmental factors, the disturbances in schools by ‘unseen forces’ could be due because Coast Province abounds in superstitious beliefs.

Every time ‘ghosts’ attack a school, parents rush to ‘rescue’ their children. The latest was at Star of the Sea High School last week, which is reported to have affected students and parents.

Being a Catholic school, a priest was summoned and a doctor called in to assess the situation.

However, they left without a solution as students cried, made noise and fell on the ground, while others got angry and demanded that the gates of the school be opened to set them free.

Dr Jennifer Othigo, who is the chief administrator of the Coast General Hospital and a guidance and counselling expert, says several factors are responsible for the incidents in girls’ schools.

She says lack of guidance and counselling for adolescents, was largely the problem.

“Such situations cause anxiety in the young girls and when they do not get the right guidance at the right time by the right people, it can be chaotic,” says Othigo.

Almost 200 people have been arrested in Vanuatu after tribal violence flared amid claims of black magic.

Three people have been killed in the South Pacific island nation.

A state of emergency has been declared after fighting broke out at the Blacksands squatter camp on the outskirts of the capital, Port Vila.

The fighting - sparked by accusations that a sorcerer had used witchcraft to kill a rival - escalated rapidly and spread through the settlement.

Blacksands is home to thousands of people who have migrated to the capital from other parts of Vanuatu.

Villagers from the islands of Ambrym and Tanna fought with machetes and knives. Local police said the ethnic violence was the worst the Melanesian nation had ever seen.

It left three men dead and others seriously hurt. Dozens of people have been arrested, including a number of tribal chiefs.

A state of emergency has been imposed and public meetings have been banned for the next two weeks.

The country’s unarmed police officers have been given special permission to carry weapons just in case there is more trouble.

Many residents across Vanuatu’s archipelago have been forbidden from travelling to Efate, the main island where Port Vila is located.

Although Christianity has strong roots in this corner of the South Pacific, witchcraft and superstition remain powerful forces.

On the island of Tanna villagers worship a mystical American called John Frum, while others believe that the husband of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II is a god. Vanuatu’s Great Council of Chiefs is expected to meet next week to look at ways to defuse tensions between rival tribes in Port Vila.

Kastom

One of the many unique aspects of kastom is the bulu scar. Believing they are vulnerable to an attack from a devil while walking alone through the forest, the people from this highland tribe of Vanuatu go to painful measures to do what they believe will protect them. Taking a burnt thorn from a sago palm, they push it into their flesh and then set it on fire. It sears the flesh, festers, and then forms a scab which will heal into a bulu scar. They do this because they believe that by enduring this pain they arouse the compassion of a powerful spirit they call Taute, and in turn Taute empowers the bulu to ward off evil spirits and damate (ancestral ghosts) when they travel through the jungle.

A boy receives his first bulu when he is five to seven years old. At that time, a minimum of five holes are burnt into the flesh of his biceps and as many as thirty if he can endure the pain. Since they believe a protective spirit enters each wound, they feel the more the better. After receiving their bulus, the boys are lowered into a pit where they live in isolation for ten days surviving only on wild yams that have been cooked in bamboo. During these ten days the boys are forbidden to leave the pit for any reason. This period of isolation is believed to be a form of rebirth and spiritual growth.

Yes, yet another nation is reporting a coinage shortage, this time it being the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific Ocean region. The difference between this shortage and shortages in other such places as India and China is that primitive money items traditionally used in barter may become a handy backup in the Solomons.

The Central Bank of Solomon Islands has called on citizens of the island nation to cash in their coins. Both the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Radio New Zealand International reported May 1 that Solomon Island businesses and local merchants were simply running out of coins to use in commerce.

Part of the problem, according to the ABC, is that “The low value of coins in Solomon Islands’ currency has led many there to either hoard them, or to give them as gifts to children.” RNZ added, “However, the number of people doing this is starting to affect businesses.”

Denton Rarawa is the acting governor of the Central Bank of Solomon Islands. He was recently quoted by both sources as saying, “When coins don’t come back into the system we have to continuously mint new coins,” adding, “The bank has now begun a public appeal asking Solomon Islanders to cash in their coins for [bank] notes.”

So, what do you do if you live or work in this South Pacific archipelago and run out of coins to use in commerce? According to an April 30 Wall Street Journal article by Yaroslav Trofimov, you do business the old fashion way. You use dolphin teeth.

Have any doubts about if dolphin teeth, wild dog teeth, tapa cloth, feathers of specific exotic and likely endangered species of birds, or any of a number of other things that were at one time used as what in numismatics is usually dubbed “odd and curious money?” Ask the International Primitive Money Society. To put in a shameless plug for the IPMS, the organization can be contacted at 2471 SW 37 St., Ocala, Fla. 34474 or through Charles Opitz at opitzc@aol.com. The IPMS meets at the annual American Numismatic Association convention. It will hold its next meeting in Baltimore Aug. 1 at 4 p.m. in Room 318. The IPMS publishes a newsletter twice a year containing original articles on primitive money and offers free ads to members.

Getting back to Trofimov’s Wall Street Journal article, the author states: “Over the past year one spinner tooth has soared in price to about two Solomon Islands dollars (26 U.S. cents), from as little as 50 Solomon Islands cents. The official currency, pegged to a global currency basket dominated by the U.S. dollar, has remained relatively stable in the period.”

Apparently dolphin teeth must be all the rage in the islands. Central Bank of the Solomon Islands Governor Rick Houenipwela is described in the article as an investor in dolphin teeth, purchasing what is described as a “huge amount” a few years ago.

Houenipwela is quoted in the article as saying, “Dolphin teeth are like gold. You keep them as a store of wealth - just as if you’d put money in a bank.” It doesn’t sound as if Houenipwela’s commodity position will encourage people to want to put Solomon Island coins back into circulation.

Houenipwela has had his chance to literally put his dolphin teeth into the bank. Some time ago he was approached by local Solomon Island businessmen who wanted to establish a bank in which dolphin teeth could be deposited. Houenipwela declined the request not because he didn’t think it was a good idea, but because only conventional currency can be deposited in banks under Solomon Islands law.

According to the Trofimov article, “Hundreds of animals are killed at a time in regular hunts, usually off the large island of Malaita. Dolphin flesh provides protein for the villagers. The teeth are used like cash to buy local produce. Fifty teeth will purchase a pig; a handful are enough for some yams and cassava.”

According to Trofimov, the ancient native tradition of purchasing the bride with dolphin teeth is alive and well, also encouraging the use of odd and primitive money over that of metal coins. The Wall Street Journal article identifies one individual as needing 5,000 teeth for an upcoming double wedding of his two sons. This individual ordered the teeth through someone at a hunting village in Malaita.

The natives aren’t particularly humane about how they harvest the dolphin teeth, according to Trofimov. The natives still use the traditional method of nearly suffocating the dolphin, then cutting off its head with a machete.

One individual who sells dolphin teeth was quoted in the Wall Street Journal article as saying, “The white man’s money will end, but the dolphin teeth will always be there for us.” It would appear the Central Bank of Solomon Islands may have a challenging time getting people to put metal coins rather than dolphin teeth back into circulation.

Ousted Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, a firm believer in astrology, said Monday the realignment of stars in early July will help defuse political tension that has been building as anti-government protests enter a fourth week.
Thailand’s discord heightened Monday after two small bombs exploded in Bangkok, though no one was injured, and the anti-government People’s Alliance for Democracy tied up traffic for hours in the latest protest against the current government.
«Be patient with the headache-inducing situation until July 2,» Thaksin told reporters. «Mars moving close to Saturn causes the headache. When Mars leaves, the situation will ease.
Thailand is a moderning, Buddhist nation, but fortunetellers and superstition play a major role in society, even among the Western-educated elite. Political decisions in the past have been known to be influenced by fortunetellers’ advice.
Before Thaksin was toppled in a 2006 military coup, respected astrologer and Senator Boonlert Pairintra predicted Thaksin’s downfall, saying that the planet Mercury used to favor the prime minister but was later eclipsed by the God of Darkness.
Thailand’s latest political tension revolves around Thaksin, who returned from exile earlier this year to face corruption charges against him now that a new elected government has taken office.
Demonstrators have been holding sometimes-violent protests since May 25 to demand the resignation of Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej and his coalition government. The protesters say Samak is a puppet of Thaksin.
Samak’s People Power Party won the most parliamentary seats in a general election last December meant to restore democracy after the coup. Samak’s new Cabinet is packed with allies and relatives of Thaksin, and critics say rehabilitating the former leader _is among the new government’s top priorities.
A court disbanded Thaksin’s Thai Rak Thai party last year and banned him and more than 100 other party executives from public office until 2012.
Animosity between pro- and anti-Thaksin forces has been simmering. Overnight Monday, two men riding a motorcycle threw small explosives at a house used as an office by Sondhi Limthongkul, a media mogul who is a leader of the anti-government alliance, police Lt. Banyong Daengmankong.
The bomb did not make it past the house’s compound wall and exploded on the sidewalk nearby, Banyong said. No one was hurt and only slight damage to the sidewalk was reported.
On Monday, about 4,000 People’s Alliance for Democracy protesters marched to the headquarters of the Election Commission to call for the resignation of some commissioners whom they accused of dismissing fraud allegations against Samak’s party candidates and political allies.
Police barricaded the commission building and the protesters dispersed after a few hours.
The People’s Alliance for Democracy also held large street demonstrations in the months prior to the 2006 coup, helping undermine the stability of Thaksin’s government. Thaksin had been accused of abuse of power and corruption.
Separately, opposition Democrat Party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva said his party planned to lodge a no-confidence motion in parliament on Tuesday against Samak and several Cabinet members «who have caused a lot of damage and will cause more damage to the country» if they remain in power.

Malaria remains one of the major public health challenges in Papua New Guinea with more than one million reported cases a year.

World Health Organisation (WHO) representative Eigil Sorensen said this in a media release on Friday to mark World Malaria Day.

Dr Sorensen said outbreaks of malaria in the highlands region continued to have a high mortality rate and more efforts would be required if the country was to reverse the incidence by 2015.

According to a WHO research, 40 percent of the world population is affected by malaria. It affected more than 500 million and killed more than one million annually.
Dr Sorensen said the distribution of long-lasting insecticidal-treated nets and the introduction of malaria rapid diagnostic tests had contributed to the reduction of the disease in some parts of the country.

This was facilitated by increased funding from the global fund to fight HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria, and through the efforts of the PNG national malarial control programme, government staff and Rotary Against Malaria.

“Prompt diagnosis and treatment remain one of the key elements of malaria prevention but the availability and distribution of medical supplies are adversely affecting the programme in rural areas,” Dr Sorensen said.

He also commended the Department of Health for revising the guidelines for malaria treatment in March and for excellent consultation with national and international stakeholders in this connection.

The new national treatment guidelines would introduce the latest treatment for malaria as first-line treatment for malaria in the country. Studies had shown the insecticidal bed nets and the availability of effective drugs had led to a clear drop in malaria-related deaths among children in Africa.

Dr Sorensen said the challenge was to make bed nets obtainable for everyone at risk of malaria, especially children and pregnant women and make the new anti-malarial medicines in the revised treatment guidelines available in rural areas.

Tens of thousands of heavy trucks are threatening to cause havoc in the Thai capital while fishermen have begun burning their boats in nationwide protests against soaring prices of fuel and other essentials, protesters said Thursday.

The government has until next Tuesday to subsidize fuel for truckers or face at least 100,000 vehicles rumbling into already traffic-clogged Bangkok, said Thongyoo Khongkhan, secretary-general of the Land Transport Federation of Thailand.

Also protesting or planning to stage demonstrations in this still heavily agricultural nation were garlic, cabbage and rice farmers, along with fishermen.

A government spokesman said money has been allocated to subsidize some costs of the farmers, fishermen and transport workers.

“The government is trying its best to reduce the immediate problem of the various groups of protesters,” said Natawut Saikau.

“The ongoing protests are not affecting the stability of the government but merely affecting the feelings of the people,” he said.

Prices for some commodities, such as rice, have risen because of greater worldwide demand, but farmers complain that these have been offset by skyrocketing inflation spurred by soaring fuel prices.

Thongyoo said a half-day strike Wednesday by truckers who parked their vehicles on highways across the country was only a prelude to next week’s possible push into Bangkok.

“Yesterday we merely showed our power by parking the trucks on the roads, but if the government fails to meet our demand, the federation has decided to make June 17 D-day when we will bring at least 100,000 trucks into Bangkok,” Thongyoo said.

The federation demands that the government sell diesel to them for 3 baht (9 U.S. cents) less than the market price per liter and allocate funds to the federation to convert truck engines from diesel to cheaper natural gas.

Finance Minister Suraphong Suebwonglee brushed aside the threat from truckers, saying authorities were working on a plan that would help reduce costs in the transport sector.

“I am not concerned about the truckers threat to strike because the government is seeking to subsidize the transport sectors as the whole,” Suraphong said without elaborating.

The president of the Fishing Federation of Thailand Mana Sripitak, meanwhile, said that more than half of the 50,000 fishing boats under its wing are being kept ashore because of the high cost of diesel.

Some fishermen have burned their boats in protest, he said, as the federation negotiated with the government for subsidies.

Farmers have in recent days staged protests in Bangkok asking the government to relieve their debts while rice and garlic farmers in northern Thailand have demonstrated against the high cost of living and the low prices for their crops.

Adding to the government’s woes is a threat by major labor unions to join up with pro-democracy demonstrations that have been occurring daily in Bangkok in recent weeks.