HAITI'S prime minister has been ousted in a no-confidence vote after more than a week of violent protests at rocketing food and fuel prices. Just as President Rene Preval unveiled a plan to cut the price of rice by 15%, 16 senators in the upper house of Parliament voted unanimously on Saturday to censure prime minister Jacques-Edouard Alexis over the crisis, costing him his job. With the 10 senators in Mr Alexis' own party absent, the legislators reproached the prime minister for failing to respond to the needs of Haiti's 8.5 million people, 80% of whom live on less than $2 a day.

France Says Food Should Take Priority Over Biofuels FRANCE: April 14, 2008 PARIS - Production of food must take precedence globally over biofuels as prices surge and the threat of famine grows, France's farm minister said on Friday, calling for a European Union initiative on world supplies. "Absolute priority must be given to agricultural production for food," French Agriculture Minister Michel Barnier told Reuters, saying France would unveil proposals at next Monday's European Union Agriculture council.

Rising food prices could have terrible consequences for the world, including the risk of war, the IMF said Saturday, calling for action to keep inflation in check. "Food prices, if they go on like they are doing today ... the consequences will be terrible," International Monetary Fund managing director Dominque Strauss-Kahn said. "Hundreds of thousands of people will be starving ... (leading) to disruption of the economic environment," Strauss-Kahn told a news conference at the close of the IMF spring meeting here.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has urged his Japanese counterpart to include the impact of biofuel production on food prices on the agenda of the G8 summit in July, Downing Street said Thursday. "There is growing consensus that we need urgently to examine the impact on food prices of different kinds and production methods of biofuels, and ensure that their use is responsible and sustainable," Brown wrote in a letter to Yasuo Fukuda.

UK's Brown Calls For G8 Action On Food Crisis US: April 11, 2008 WASHINGTON - British Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Wednesday called for a coordinated response led by the United Nations, World Bank and International Monetary Fund to address soaring food prices. In an April 8 letter, Brown asked Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, as chair of Group of Eight industrial nations, to request the international agencies develop a global strategy to address the problem of rising food costs.

Drought To Worsen Zimbabwe Food Situation

Advice for those trying to solve the global food crisis: do not start from here. As governments across the developing world impose export bans on staple foods, further worsening the shortages on inter

The rising cost of basic foods risks wiping out a decade of efforts to combat global -poverty and could trigger further riots in the world's poorest countries, leading multilateral institutions warned yesterday. The World Bank, the Food and Agriculture Organisation and the International Monetary Fund were unanimous in concluding that the rising appetite of the bio-fuels industry was part of the reason for the increase in food prices.

Chief Adviser (CA) Fakhruddin Ahmed yesterday said the government will build up a bigger food stock through import and local procurement in order to ensure food security and keep food prices, especially of rice, at tolerable levels. Unveiling a package of contingency measures, he said increased allocation for agriculture and employment generation would be high on the list of priorities in next budget to overcome the wayward market situation.

BEIJING: The fear of failing to grow enough corn, wheat or rice to feed its people has spurred China into action this year, but Beijing may be doing too little, too late to overcome the powerful forces of urbanization. Just as global grain markets grapple with ultralow stocks and record-high prices, China is battling to stem the destruction of its arable land due to urban sprawl, the growing scarcity of water and the exodus of labor to its booming cities by directing tens of billions of dollars to rural areas.