[NYTr] UN praises Cuba's ability to feed people
 
Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2007 20:34:41 -0600 (CST)

Via NY Transfer News Collective  *  All the News that Doesn't Fit
 
[This is an AP report of the Ziegler comments that have sparked the
latest attempts to discredit the UN food expert.  

See many prior articles by George Monbiot, MADRE, IPS, the Cuban and
European press, on Jean Ziegler, biofuels and world hunger in
NY Transfer's archives here:  http://tinyurl.com/yqyp9r

Fidel Castro's stance against inappropriate use of biofuels is well-
documented in his apeeches and recent "Reflections" commentaries.

Ziegler has also condemned Israeli policies against the Palestinians
and the US war on Iraq.  No wonder he's in the crosshairs of the USA,
as well as the ethanol/biofuels industry.- NY Transfer]

AP Nov 7, 2007 via Global Research - Nov 14, 2007
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7329

UN praises Cuba's ability to feed people

by Will Weissert
Associated Press

Havana - A U.N. food expert hailed Cuba as a world model in feeding its
population, some 18 years after the collapse of the Soviet Bloc ravaged
the island's economy and sparked widespread hunger.

Jean Ziegler, who has been the United Nations' independent investigator
on "the right to food" since 2000, spent 11 days in Cuba on a
fact-finding mission, meeting with top officials and chatting up
farmers, state managers and ordinary Cubans waiting in line for food
allotted by ration cards.

"We haven't seen even one malnourished person" - a rare feat in much of
poverty-stricken Latin America, Ziegler said Tuesday. "The right to
being fed is the priority, without a doubt."

Cuba is one of 32 countries that include the "right to food" in their
constitutions, and fewer still - including Brazil, Latin America's
largest economy - meet pledges to provide food to all their citizens,
he said.

Ziegler, who visited two prisons in Havana to ask inmates about their
daily diets, did not address human rights concerns over the arbitrary
imprisonment and alleged abuse of political prisoners and critics of
the island's one-party government.

Despite a 46-year U.S. embargo against the communist-run island, Cuba
has found ways to ensure its population does not go hungry, Ziegler
said. "Cuba always invents an answer," he noted.

Widespread daily shortages continue to frustrate Cubans, and the
government blames those - and nearly all other - problems on the
embargo. Yet since 2000, Cuba has been able to purchase food and
agricultural products from the U.S. on a cash basis.

The island still struggles with major deficits in food production, and
relies too much on foreign imports, Ziegler said. But the related need
to improve production capacity has been addressed more openly since
July, when interim leader Raul Castro encouraged people to seek ways to
improve efficiency in farming and other sectors.

Raul Castro has governed Cuba since July 2006, when emergency
intestinal surgery forced his brother Fidel to step aside.

In the early 1990s, Cuba was forced to adopt wartime-like austerity
measures after the Soviet Union collapsed and the island's gross
domestic product plunged by 35 percent.

Ziegler's visit marked the third time a U.N. special investigator has
been invited to the island since 1998. The Geneva-based U.N. Human
Rights Council appoints outside experts like him to investigate
specific countries or subjects, giving them wide latitude in their
reports.

                                 *
=================================================================
 NY Transfer News Collective     *    A Service of Blythe Systems
           Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us
            Our main website:   http://www.blythe.org
   List Archives:       http://blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/
   Subscribe:     http://blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr
=================================================================