Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko retaliates to the communist presence in Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko’s political party. (0:30)

 

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UN World Food Programme Executive Director Josette Sheeran speaks about the importance of the world hunger crisis, especially during this time of financial crisis. (1:00)

 

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According to the Executive Director of the UN World Food Programme (WFP), Josette Sheeran, the food hunger crisis has become a “silent tsunami” causing violence, corruption, and starvation in more than 40 countries worldwide.

In her address to the Women’s Foreign Policy Group, Sheeran attributed this crisis to the increase in natural disasters as well as soaring food prices. “Hunger is not a solely humanitarian challenge,” said Sheeran, who explained the effect that unstable foreign governments have on the United States such as the export bans and trade restrictions passed in recent years.

Sheeran spoke of the World Food Programme’s efforts to establish school feeding programs to enable girls to attend schools their families would usually not let them attend. Also, the WFP has created similar programs for AIDS orphans that also gives them extra rations at the end of the week so families are more likely to take them home.

Specialists have helped WFP health workers develop “power packed food” for infants and toddlers to prevent undernutrition using locally grown crops, Sheeran said. In countries like Egypt, India, and Haiti, this has provided “the greatest impact for the least investment.”

Sheeran hopes that the World Food Programme will help supply the world with twice the amount of food currently produced by 2050 and will provide opportunities, specifically for African farmers, to make their move onto the world stage as major food producers.

Amid domestic political turmoil and neighboring geopolitical conflict, speaking through a translator, Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko addressed the country’s future plans for an independent and democratic Ukraine. Nearly two weeks ago, Ukraine’s ruling coalition collapsed, and last year at this time the parliamentary elections put in place an ‘orange’ coalition featuring an alliance between the Yushchenko’s party and the party of Prime Minister Julia Temeshinko. The recent Russian-Georgian conflict has caused international tension between Ukraine and Russia over the fact that Ukraine hosts Russia’s Black Sea fleet and the transportation of energy supplies between Russia and Europe.

In the context of the Russian-Georgian conflict and pro-Russian forces active in the Krimean area, Yushchenko said that he is ready to fight and protect his sovereign nation and determine it’s own defense and security policy. He strongly confirmed that his territory would never be used for any country to deploy nuclear weapons. Addressing the fears of communist presence in the government, Yushchenko did not understand how Prime Minister Temeshinko made their top partnership with communists because, he said, “there are no Ukrainian communists. These communists always represented interests of a different country.”

Yushchenko confirmed his support of NATO, saying it is “the best model to guarantee security in the (Ukraine’s) international coordinates”. The President continued to declare his plan for a democratic Ukraine and integration into the European Union under the Association Agreement. The Association Agreements would include a free trade area and a start to negotiations of visa free access between the EU and Ukraine.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) says that the White House has continued to refuse to cooperate with investigations into the attorney firing scandal. There is a coverup, he says. (0:26)

 

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Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) warns President Bush that any pardon or clemency in the attorney firing scandal investigation will be seen as an admission of guilt. He says there must be accountability. Leahy was speaking at a press conference on the Department of Justice Inspector General’s report on the attorney firing scandal. (0:48)

 

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According to New York Times columnist and author Thomas L. Friedman, the world is not going through a green revolution.

“Have you ever been to a revolution where no one got hurt? That’s the green revolution. In the green revolution everybody is a winner. Exxon’s green, BP’s green, GM is now green,” said Friedman during a discussion of his new book “Hot, Flat and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution–and How it Can Renew America.”

“That’s not a revolution my friends, that’s a party…it has no connection whatsoever to a revolution. You’ll know it’s a revolution when somebody gets hurt.”

Friedman explained that recent threats to the environment has made a revolution of this magnitude necessary, and that it can be carried out through innovation in energy technologies (ET).

“Whichever country, company, or community can come up with a source of abundant, cheap, clean, reliable electrons…will actually have the answer for energy resource supply and demand, will be able to undermine petro-dictatorships, will be able to mitigate climate change, will be able eliminate energy poverty, and will certainly be able to slow down bio-diversity loss.”

Friedman said that with the opportunity to provide so many benefits, energy technologies will be the next great global industry, and the country that dominates the field will have the greatest economic, national, and energy security.

“That country has to be the United States of America. If we don’t own ET the way we owned [information technology], the chance that our kids having the same standard of living we did will be zero…it’s still up for grabs.”

Party is over – our elected officials need to be cut off.

I had the privilege of attending the first presidential race debate in Oxford, Miss., last week. I woke up the morning of the debate not knowing if it Sen. McCain was going to show up. He was threatening to back down, claiming the financial bailout deadlock in the Senate needed his attention.

McCain ultimately showed up, but as I was watching the debate in Oxford, I remembered a story one of my correspondents told me after the 2004 presidential debate between Bush and Kerry. The correspondent was on a rental car bus with one of Bush’s senior economic advisers and asked him, not as a reporter, but as a concerned American, just what was the Bush economic plan for America.

My reporter asked, “We went from agrarian, to industrial to tech, but now even tech is threatened by overseas workers, so what is it that is going to guarantee the American standard of living moving forward?”

The smooth-talking, attractive economist said, “You see this is why we need President Bush, why it matters, because the president appoints the Fed chairman and we need a Fed who makes money cheap. Credit is the engine of our economy.”

If credit is the engine, I think this engine has seized. I’ve written before about our standard of living being financed with credit, refinancing, interest-only loans and home equity lines of credit to pay down credit card debt.

This bailout package may get the motor of the engine called America turning at a few RPMs, but it’s not going to be driving anywhere anytime soon. I’ve asked members of Congress on both sides of the aisle, and many presidential surrogates and talking heads the same question, “What is going to grow our economy?” And to my surprise, not one of them has a specific answer.

This debate seemed more like two men arranging deck chairs on the Titanic than a debate of plans and ideas. Given the price tag of $700 billion for the financial sector, and a trillion in Iraq, coupled with the weight of social security debt, what investment will the government be able to make?

The credit party is over.

It’s time to clean up the mess, get sober and get back to work. The Bush administration and the two candidates to date have offered nothing substantial to grow the economy – to get over that hangover. Their answers are more spending and more weapons. This is sort of like an alcoholic trying to cure a hangover with a Bloody Mary.

It’s time to cut them off.

Pentagon Correspondent Dawn Casey will cover Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’ honor cordon for Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus. The Washington Bureau will also cover a book discussion on “Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution-And How it Can Renew America,” with author Thomas Friedman, an Address on “New Security Challenges for Europe and the Ukraine-U.S. Strategic Partnership,” by Ukrainian President Viktor Yuschenko, and a luncheon with the Women’s Foreign Policy Group featuring United Nations World Food Programme Executive Director Josette Sheeran.

Speaking to reporters after the first presidential debate, Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour says that he found it interesting that Barack Obama, the “candidate for change,” agreed with the president on the financial crisis package, while the Democratic Party didn’t care what he had to say. (0:27)

 

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