15 April, 2022

This small Middle Eastern country of nearly 7 million people had already been suffering from widespread hunger in the past two years. But the war is making that even worse. Ukraine and Russia combined provide 95 percent of Lebanon’s wheat. Martin Keulertz, a food security researcher at the American University of Beirut, told me that an estimated four out of five people in Lebanon are now food insecure, meaning “they don’t get food at all times at the sufficient quantity and quality.”

Lebanon is just a single, acute victim of a worldwide food crisis, one that David Beasley, executive director of the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP), recently told the New York Times has “no precedent even close to this since World War II.” At the end of 2021, global food prices were already at 10-year highs because of drought, high fuel prices, and recovering demand for agricultural products after Covid-19.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has embroiled two of the world’s major food and gas exporters, has added to the terrible state of global hunger, especially for countries like Lebanon in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region that are highly dependent on exports from the two combatants. Food prices globally are now at their highest since the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) began tracking in 1990, and around 887 million people (342 million based on real-time monitoring and 545 million on predictive models) are currently experiencing food insecurity, with tens of millions more joining their ranks every month.

The dire need caused by the war and the millions of Ukrainian refugees forced to flee because of the conflict mean that aid is being spread more thinly at a time when food and cash transfers are more vital than ever. While there’s enough food to feed everyone in the world, high fuel prices make it harder to ensure food gets to the people most at risk of hunger at prices they can afford. While no one fully escapes the toll of very high food prices and scarcity — the price of food in the US jumped 10 percent over the past year according to recently released data — it will be the poorest countries most dependent on wheat exports from Russia and Ukraine that will suffer if governments and aid organizations can’t fill in the gaps.

A war on food

Just because the world produces sufficient food supplies doesn’t mean there’s enough getting to the needy — and providing help for them is getting more expensive. The WFP was “incurring $42 million more [per month] for food purchases prior to the Ukraine crisis because of high food and fuel prices globally,” said Reem Nada, communications officer for the World Food Programme MENA region. “With the added blow of the Ukraine crisis, WFP is incurring another $29 million more [per month].” In Yemen and Syria — two countries in the region with severe and ongoing conflict-driven hunger crises — the WFP is only 31 percent and 24 percent funded respectively, while in Yemen alone operations are $10 million higher per month than the WFP budgeted for.

Russia and Ukraine combined provide about 26 percent of global wheat exports, along with high percentages of corn, vegetable oil, and barley. But in certain parts of the world, the dependency is far greater; in the MENA region, Nada told me, an average of 80 percent of local demand for wheat is met through import, with much of it coming from nearby Russia and Ukraine.

The plight of Lebanon shows how the war in Ukraine has exacerbated one country’s already existing food security problems. While the US and other rich nations have been grappling with higher-than-expected inflation over the past year, since 2019 Lebanon has been facing an economic crisis caused by hyperinflation, which means that people’s salaries have been badly outpaced by the rising price of food. As bread subsidies have waned, the cost of daily staples has risen out of reach. Keulertz told me even the nominal price of bread — meaning without accounting for inflation — had increased by almost 20 percent since October 2021.

In response to dwindling supplies, bakers are moving away from making more complex products like manoushe (Lebanese pizza) and croissants to producing only basic bread. Even so, customers are getting even less for their money — Keulertz said the weight of a standard pack of bread has changed. “It used to be that they said it has to be 900 grams, and then it was suddenly 850, and then it was 830.”

Adding to the trouble, the Beirut port explosion in 2020, which destroyed most of Lebanon’s main granary, left Lebanon with only enough room to store one month of grain supplies. This means that the government and other actors have to work more quickly to sort out short-term disruptions in supply chains because they don’t have six months of storage to rely on to feed the country in the meantime.

While the direct impacts of the war on agriculture in Ukraine will depend on the course of the conflict, the country’s agriculture minister said that the spring crop sowing area for corn and other crops could be halved. Millions of tons of corn stored in Ukraine’s silos — much of which would be destined for the export market — is proving difficult to access. Beyond the possibility that farms themselves will become battlegrounds, merchant vessels in the Black Sea have been hit and one has already sunk.

Even in the unlikely scenario that the war will come to a quick close, however, other factors in the global economy mean that the pressure of food insecurity is unlikely to relent.

How food and fuel are linked

You can’t drink oil, but the price of that keystone global commodity, which was already high pre-invasion, may affect the cost of food more than any other single factor. “We forget that most of the cost that consumers pay is actually everything that happens after a commodity leaves the farm,” said Chris Barrett, a professor at Cornell who researches food security. This matters because “the longer-run effect and immediate effect, both are probably going to come from the energy markets,” he added.

In a study last year that covered 90 percent of the world’s food production, Barrett and his co-authors found that farmers receive only 27 percent on average of what consumers spend on food eaten at home in domestic markets, and even less for imported food. Another study found that global oil prices affected food prices in East Africa primarily through transport costs, especially for countries that are further inland. This means that most of the costs of food — especially for foods that are being exported — happen after food is harvested in processing, manufacturing, storage, food service, and transportation. And each of these steps requires energy.

Meanwhile, coal, natural gas, and electricity prices are at their highest levels in decades, while the price of oil has spiked by nearly 70 percent over the past year. That drives up prices along multiple points of the food value chain, and will impact countries that don’t directly import from Ukraine or Russia.

The situation in Yemen, Syria, South Sudan, and Ethiopia — all facing conflict and already-high levels of food insecurity — is even more dire. Instability, flooding, and displacement in South Sudan have compounded the needs of people in a country where most of the population has severe food insecurity, while the Tigray war in Ethiopia has pushed places into famine with limited humanitarian aid access. These countries in East Africa face higher transport costs than those in the Middle East, said Barrett, so high fuel costs could affect food security far beyond the war.

Food aid is vital, but the pool of aid is stretched

Just as high costs make it harder for the poor to buy needed food, it’s harder for aid groups to help those in greatest need. Aid budgets are already being stretched because a dollar now gets you less everywhere, and crises around the world — Ukraine, Tigray, South Sudan — all draw from a limited pool of aid.

The good news is that about 30 percent of the world’s wheat is in storage, according to Barrett, up from about 24 percent a decade ago. Thanks to a strong harvest in India and Australia and a predicted bumper crop in the northern hemisphere, as well as a predicted drop in feed wheat demand, wheat stocks should be able to meet demand through 2023 and beyond. As Barrett notes, “trade is built for moments like this.” But getting wheat from these more distant areas to the MENA region is more expensive than from the Black Sea region and takes much longer. The main challenge in the short- and medium-term will be getting this wheat to people vulnerable to hunger at a price they can afford.

Given that high energy costs and inflation make it more expensive to provide aid, governments — by continuing or expanding social safety nets domestically and by providing foreign aid — need to take steps to reduce unnecessary regulations that raise the costs of feeding the hungry. For example, the US Agency for International Development (USAID) requires that American food aid must come from US farmers, and that at least half of it must be transported in US- flagged vessels. Suspending these regulations on aid could make US food aid up to twice as cost-effective and save lives both in Ukraine and far beyond its borders.

Aid can be given directly through shipments of food or through cash transfers (either unconditional or specifically for food), and every dollar or bushel of wheat saved through streamlined regulations makes a difference. The WFP’s Nada told me there are 18 million people in Syria and Yemen receiving direct food assistance from the WFP. Because of the higher price of wheat, the WFP’s operations are being stretched past the breaking point. “[I]mports from Ukraine account for 31 percent of the wheat arriving in Yemen in the past three months — prices are suddenly seven times higher than they were in 2015,” according to a WFP article from March. “A kilo of wheat flour now costs on average more than 800 rials (around US$3.20) in the south, compared to 146 rials (around US$0.58) before the crisis.”

Cash transfers or cash-based vouchers for food make up an increasing percentage of WFP’s portfolio, accounting for 37 percent of their global operations in 2020. These, too, have been affected by inflation and rising food prices. “If we give someone, say, a dollar, now a dollar is not worth the same and will not buy him the same amount of food it could buy a year ago or even two years ago,” said Nada.

Aid is more necessary than ever, but because of rising global prices, donor governments are already hitting up against funding limits, which has left the WFP and other organizations struggling to raise money. It’s imperative that high-income governments, along with development agencies and international finance institutions, ensure sufficient funding to fight hunger. Organizations like USAID have provided additional aid for the food crisis, but the shortfall remains.

Beyond this, experts say it’s imperative that countries producing staples avoid implementing export bans, which exacerbate food insecurity in importing countries by pushing up prices, even if there is no actual production shortage. Finally, even though there is no global wheat shortage, it’s important that organizations looking to provide aid take into account the increased supply chain costs in getting food where it needs to be — shipping wheat to Lebanon from, for example, Australia instead of Ukraine takes more time, energy, and money. In the medium term, countries that are high importers will need to take steps, like growing domestic drought-resistant grains, to diversify their food sources and increase domestic production.

Food is vital to life, and hunger is ruinous on levels both personal — a family not being able to afford iftar — and societal. It can lead to loss of social cohesion, political instability, and increased conflict. There is enough food in the world for everyone, but time and cost are of the essence in ensuring it gets to the people who need it most.

The first would be to make their case against Trump in the court of public opinion. If their report contains damning findings about Trump, then perhaps some swing voters might be persuaded not to restore him to office. If this is the main goal, the committee’s report actions and eventual report should be aimed at the public.

The second would be to make a criminal indictment of Trump, and perhaps his conviction, more likely. Again, this would in part be about turning up actual damning findings, but the key audience here wouldn’t be the public — it would be top Justice Department officials like Attorney General Merrick Garland.

Trump’s critics believe he committed crimes and want him charged — he tried to steal the election, after all! But it’s unclear how likely that is to happen. A recent New York Times report claims federal prosecutors have recently started “seeking information about people more closely tied to Mr. Trump.” These deliberations, though, are happening behind closed doors, and we don’t really know their status.

Some Trump critics fear that Garland isn’t taking this matter seriously enough, and hope to publicly pressure him into doing so (or simply to lay out a strong, reasoned case that Trump should be charged). But others believe that, if a case against Trump really is in the works already, the committee should avoid getting in the way of the DOJ’s work, avoiding any actions that could make such a prosecution look politicized.

It’s unclear whether the January 6 committee’s behavior will have any significant impact at all on public opinion about Trump (which has proven difficult to impact) or Garland’s decision-making (which he will try to keep removed from politics). But they might as well try.

To refer or not to refer

The committee could conceivably approach the question of Trump’s criminal liability in a few ways, from weakest to strongest:

Again, a referral is just a recommendation, the Justice Department is under no obligation to follow it, and it might have little practical impact. But for those of the school of thought that Garland needs more public pressure to take a Trump case seriously, this could help achieve that.

Until recently, the question of what to say about Trump seemed to lie months far in the future, once the committee wrapped up its work, but a twist in the process surfaced it sooner.

While attempting to get Trump’s lawyer John Eastman to turn over records, despite Eastman’s claims to attorney-client privilege, the committee argued in a court filing that his records fell under the “crime-fraud exception.” If an attorney is advising a client on how to commit crimes (rather than just how to defend against them), those communications aren’t privileged.

To make this argument, the committee had to put forward their best argument that Trump may have committed crimes. So they did. They argued that their “evidence and information” establish “a good-faith belief” that Trump and others may have engaged in “criminal and/or fraudulent acts.”

They mentioned three in particular. First was obstruction of an official proceeding (trying to disrupt Congress’s count of the electoral votes on January 6 with actions like pressuring Mike Pence). Second was conspiracy (basically, working with other people to obstruct the proceeding). Third was simple common law fraud (the lies he spread that the election was stolen from him).

The committee did not argue here that Trump affirmatively committed crimes, they just said they have “a good-faith belief” that he “may” have done so. This also wasn’t their whole case, it was a 14-page overview and limited to matters Eastman was involved in.

But it was enough to convince the judge who reviewed their claims, David Carter of the Central District of California. In a scorching order, Carter wrote in late March that it was “more likely than not” that Trump committed obstruction and conspiracy related to the January 6 vote count. “If the country does not commit to investigating and pursuing accountability for those responsible, the Court fears January 6 will repeat itself,” Carter added, in a passage that may well have been aimed at the attorney general.

Did the referral of Trump kind of already happen?

Judge Carter’s ruling was a victory for the committee, but it had a surprising effect on some of its members and staff. It persuaded some that a criminal referral letter was now unnecessary and perhaps counterproductive because Judge Carter had kind of already done it. Schmidt and Broadwater of the Times wrote:

So among these committee members, there’s a belief that Garland now is or will be investigating Trump and that they should stay out of his way. They believe they can still write in their own report that they think Trump committed crimes, but they want to avoid sending that referral letter to the Justice Department. Doing so, they fear, could backfire.

But remember that other priority of the committee: trying to impact public opinion. Here, a reluctance to refer Trump for prosecution could be problematic. It could be interpreted by the media, much like the Mueller report, as essentially “backing down.” The referral would be symbolic, but symbols can send a message, and declining to refer Trump (after referring four of his ex-aides) might send the wrong message.

There’s also the argument put forward by Rep. Elaine Luria (D-VA) recently — that this isn’t about messaging, but rather duty. “If in the course of our investigation we find that criminal activity has occurred, I think it’s our responsibility to refer that to the Department of Justice,” Luria said.

The disagreement over a criminal referral concerns something the January 6 committee can control, but the fate of the republic likely doesn’t hinge on it. The decision on whether Trump will be prosecuted will be made by the Justice Department. And the decision on whether Trump will win if he runs in 2024 will be made by voters, most of whom are not so happy with Joe Biden lately.

The committee can do its best to marginally impact either decision-maker, but the looming sense that Trump might slip away from consequences yet again — or regain power altogether — is a problem they can’t solve on their own.

“Twitter should match the laws of the country,” said Musk at the TED conference on Thursday, then later said, “If it’s a gray area, I would say let the tweet exist.”

But allowing absolutely free speech is easier in concept than in practice. If Musk were to buy Twitter, its moderation rules around topics from hate speech to threats of nuclear violence would ultimately be at his discretion or at the discretion of the leaders he puts in charge.

If another major tech company like Facebook or Apple tried to buy Twitter, that would likely set off antitrust concerns. But there’s nothing under US law stopping an incredibly wealthy individual like Musk from buying a company with so much power, even though there’s an obvious possibility that Musk could use the platform to shape his own business or political interests.

We don’t know yet what will come of Musk’s expressed interest in buying Twitter. It’s worth noting how, despite being the richest man in the world, he may not have the liquid cash to do so, since much of his wealth is tied up in stocks. But this saga highlights how valuable Twitter is, regardless of its bottom line.

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From Jokes Subreddit

A doctor goes out and buys the best car on the market, a brand new Ferrari GTO. It is also the most expensive car in the world, and it costs him $500,000. He takes it out for a spin and stops at a red light. -

An old man on a moped, looking about 100 years old, pulls up next to him.

The old man looks over at the sleek shiny car and asks, “What kind of car ya got there, sonny?”

The doctor replies, “A Ferrari GTO. It cost half a million dollars!”

“That’s a lot of money,” says the old man. “Why does it cost so much?”

“Because this car can do up to 250 miles an hour!” states the doctor proudly.

The moped driver asks, “Mind if I take a look inside?”

“No problem,” replies the doctor.

So the old man pokes his head in the window and looks around.

Then, sitting back on his moped, the old man says, “That’s a pretty nice car, all right, but I’ll stick with my moped!”

Just then the light changes, so the doctor decides to show the old man just what his car can do.

He floors it, and within 30 seconds, the speedometer reads 150 mph.

Suddenly, he notices a dot in his rear view mirror – what it could be…and suddenly…

WHHHOOOOOOSSSSSHHH!

Something whips by him going much faster!

“What on earth could be going faster than my Ferrari?” the doctor asks himself.

He floors the accelerator and takes the Ferrari up to 175 mph.

Then, up ahead of him, he sees that it’s the old man on the moped!

Amazed that the moped could pass his Ferrari, he gives it more gas and passes the moped at 210 mph.

WHOOOOOOOSHHHHH!

He’s feeling pretty good until he looks in his mirror and sees the old man gaining on him AGAIN!

Astounded by the speed of his old guy, he floors the gas pedal and takes the Ferrari all the way up to 250 mph.

Not ten seconds later, he sees the moped bearing down on him again!

The Ferrari is flat out, and there’s nothing he can do!

Suddenly, the moped plows into the back of his Ferrari, demolishing the rear end.

The doctor stops and jumps out and , unbelievably, the old man is still alive.

He runs up to the mangled old man and says, “Oh my gosh! Is there anything I can do for you?”

The old man whispers, “Unhook my suspenders from your side mirror.”

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A man wakes up in the hospital. An attractive nurse says “you were in a bad accident and you can’t feel anything from the waist down”… -

So the man replies, “well then can I feel your tits?”

-Gilbert Gottfried original told on the Doug Loves Movies podcast. RIP Gilbert.

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A man was sentenced to 20 years in prison for some crimes that he’d committed. -

The 20 years were just about to come to an end when the man falls sick. On his last day he unfortunately ends up in a coma due to the mental distress from living in prison for so long.

As he is being admitted to the hospital, the policeman runs towards him and extends his sentence to another 20 years!

You might think that’s uncalled for, but he was right. You aren’t supposed to end a sentence with a coma.

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“My husband just wants to have sex all the time” -

Vented the recently married woman to her sister, “it’s every day like clockwork he gets home from work, takes off his clothes at the doorstep and says “I’m home honey let’s hit the sack”. Don’t get my wrong I love him and the sex is good but I need a break I can barely walk””

Then the sister says “oh my well what you can do is say is that you have your period and that way he’ll at least leave you alone for a few days to give you a break”

The wife then says: “that’s a good idea, I’ll try that”

That evening the husband arrives and quickly starts undressing like usual, then the wife tell him “oh hi honey, I know you are in the mood but here is the thing, I Just got my period today”

The husband then after a long pause of silence goes to the kitchen and brings two glasses of champagne, puts some easy listening music. The wife then says: “oh how romantic and thoughtful babe, but what are we celebrating?

Husband then smirks and says: “It’s Backdoor week honey”

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Dating Rituals -

[Found this joke on an old computer file. There’s enough here to offend virtually everyone …]

WHITE WOMEN First date: You get to kiss her goodnight. Second date: You get to grope all over and make out. Third date: You get to have sex, but only in the missionary position.

IRISH WOMEN First Date: You both get blind drunk and have sex Second Date: You both get blind drunk and have sex. 20th Anniversary: You both get blind drunk and have sex.

ITALIAN WOMEN First Date: You take her to a play and an expensive restaurant. Second Date: You meet her parents and her Mom makes spaghetti and meatballs. Third Date: You have sex, she wants to marry you and insists on a 3-carat ring. 5th Anniversary: You already have 5 kids together and hate the thought of having sex. 6th Anniversary: You find yourself a girlfriend.

JEWISH WOMEN First Date: You get dynamite oral sex. Second Date: You get more oral sex. Third Date: You tell her you’ll marry her and never get oral sex again.

CHINESE WOMEN First date: You get to buy her an expensive dinner, but nothing happens Second date: You buy her an even more expensive dinner. Nothing happens again. Third date: You don’t even get to the third date and you already realized nothing is going to happen.

INDIAN WOMEN First date: Meet her parents. Second date: Set the date of the wedding. Third date: Wedding night

BLACK WOMEN First Date: You get to buy her a real expensive dinner. Second Date: You get to buy her and her girlfriends a real expensive dinner. Third Date: You get to pay her rent. Tenth Date: She’s pregnant by someone other than you.

MEXICAN WOMEN First Date: You buy her an expensive dinner, get drunk on Tequila, and have sex in the back of her car. Second Date: She’s pregnant. Third Date: She moves in. One week later ~ her mother, father, his girlfriend, her two sisters, her brother, all of their kids, her grandma, her father’s girlfriend’s mother, her two cousins, her sister’s boyfriend and his three kids move in and you live on rice and beans for the rest of your life in your home that used to be nice, but now looks like a home along the Rio Grande.

The POINT? DON’T YOU JUST LOVE IRISH WOMEN?

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