WB meets as rising food prices spark unrest Agence France-Presse . Washington The World Bank opened its spring meeting here Sunday as rising food prices spark deadly unrest in developing countries, underscoring the urgency of ensuring desperate people get fed. Policymakers of the anti-poverty bank are due to discuss a massive plan to reduce hunger announced earlier this month by bank president Robert Zoellick.

The Myanmar Government has agreed to provide 100,000 MTs of Rangoon Kekulu with immediate effect to overcome the current increase in the rice of price in the local market artificially created by hoarding. The decision was taken during the visit made by Trade, Marketing Development, Cooperative and Consumer Affairs Minister Bandula Gunawardena to Myanmar last week. Minister Gunawardana told the Daily News that President Mahinda Rajapaksa was directly involved to the matter through discussions with the Myanmar Government.

EU Can Hit Biofuels Goal Without Conflicts - Germany SLOVENIA: April 14, 2008 BRDO - The European Union can achieve its 2020 target to get 10 percent of all transport fuel from biofuels without adding to soaring food prices and harming rainforests, Germany's environment minister said on Saturday. "We can meet the 10 percent target through biofuel production in the European Union (and imports of) raw materials, which do not lead to a conflict with food or rainforests," Sigmar Gabriel told reporters on the fringes of a meeting of EU environment ministers in Slovenia.

A doubling of food prices over the past three years could push 100 million people in poorer developing countries further into poverty and governments must step in to tackle the issue, World Bank president Robert Zoellick said on Sunday. "Based on a rough analysis, we estimate that a doubling of food prices over the last three years could potentially push 100 million people in low-incomecountries deeper into poverty," Zoellick said in a statement at the end of the World Bank spring meeting here.

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.

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.