Organization calls for Haiti’s debt forgiveness. Haiti, the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, needs to have its debt forgiven so that it can try to address a serious humanitarian crisis, reports the BBC. The millions of dollars the country has to pay back to foreign creditors, makes it nearly impossible to take care of problems within its own economy, according to a report by the Center for Economic and Policy Research. The report does describe the criteria that have kept Haiti from qualifying for the full debt cancellation under the International Monetary Fund and World Bank’s Heavily Indebted Poor Country Initiative. But it goes on to say that, with the situation in Haiti being so dire, there is no good reason to keep delaying paying the nation’s debts. The world knows Haiti needs all the money it can get, says lead report author Mark Weisbrot. Haiti was already struggling with skyrocketing food prices before the nation was hit with four consecutive hurricanes that devastated infrastructure and made many people homeless.

Almost 1 billion people are hungry worldwide. The number of hungry people worldwide is reaching a staggering 1 billion, according to a United Nations agency. The number sits at 963 million, 40 million of whom were pushed into hunger just this year, reports the BBC. With the soaring food prices earlier this year, fewer people could afford a good meal, says a report by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). “High food prices have had a devastating effect on the most vulnerable and insecure part of the world’s population,” said FAO’s agricultural and development economics divisions head Kostas Stamoulis. Even though today’s economy has driven down the price of food, according to FAO’s food price index, the cost of food was still 28 percent higher in October than two years ago. The number of people suffering from hunger has consistently risen over the years. In 2007, the number was 923 million, in 2003-05 the number was 848 million and in 1990-92 the number was 842 million. Most of the hungry (about 907 million) live in developing nations. And more than half, 65 percent, live in India, China, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan and Ehtiopia. Jacques Diouf, FAO’s head, has called the situation “morally unacceptable” and said, during a summit in June, that $30 billion each year is needed to help increase farm productivity in developing nations. He also challenged President-elect Barack Obama to get active in the world’s fight against hunger. “Obama started his campaign with the simple words, ‘Yes, We Can,’ and I hope that will help us make it happen. I say ‘Yes, We Can,’ but only if everybody plays their role,” he said.

More children are going to bed hungry. Close to 700,000 U.S. children lived in households that had a hard time putting food on the table at some point in 2007, says a new federal report. The number of children who went to bed hungry is the highest since 1998, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s annual report on food security. The report also showed that those 691,000 children lived in homes where families had to eat non-balanced meals and low-cost food, or even skip meals because of a lack of money. The number of families struggling to feed children adequately rose 50 percent from 430,000 children in 2006. Nearly 36.2 million children and adults struggled to get food in 2007, according to the report, up slightly from 35.5 million in 2006. Two thirds of them – 11.9 million people – changed their eating habits by eating low-cost foods, participated in federal food and nutrition assistance programs, ate less varied diets or obtained emergency food from pantries or emergency kitchens, according to the report. That number is up more than 40 percent since 2000. See more of the report at U.S. Department of Agriculture Web site.