World Food Programme (WFP) Bangladesh organises a walk in the city yesterday. Photo: STAR Hundreds of children, UN officials and their partners yesterday walked the streets of the major cities, including the capital of the country calling for national and global efforts to end hunger and malnutrition of children. Holding colourful festoons and banners and wearing T-shirts that carried slogans 'End Hunger- Walk the World', they walked to raise awareness and funds for WFP to provide school meals to the millions of children who attend schools hungry everyday.

Clutching an intricate bronze cross he used to dig graves during Ethiopia's 1984-1985 famine, priest Alemayu Gede prays drought and high food prices will not make him use it as a shovel again. At the height of the famine that caused more than 1 million deaths and spawned the Band Aid project bringing dozens of top musicians together to raise money, Alemayu helped dig 200 graves a day with the symbol of his faith which he carries everywhere.

Clutching an intricate bronze cross he used to dig graves during Ethiopia's 1984-1985 famine, priest Alemayu Gede prays drought and high food prices will not make him use it as a shovel again. At the height of the famine that caused more than 1 million deaths and spawned the Band Aid project bringing dozens of top musicians together to raise money, Alemayu helped dig 200 graves a day with the symbol of his faith which he carries everywhere.

Investing in agriculture in Africa to solve food shortages is more important than just reacting to the continent's present food crisis, according to the leader of a U.N. food aid organization. "The real underlying problem is a long-term one; productivity growth in agriculture is going down," International Fund for Agricultural Development President Lennart Bage said in a Thursday interview with The Japan Times.

Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda pledged Thursday $50 million in additional aid for Africa to deal with soaring food prices and the World Bank and three U.N. food-related organizations renewed their commitment to address food shortages and high food prices on the continent.

A devastating disaster hits a longstanding Asian dictatorship. The crisis is compounded by failed economic policies and conflicts with neighbors. The world stands ready to help, but the regime dithers and aid goes undelivered. Even information on the catastrophe is scarce thanks to a media blackout, government propaganda and denial.

The French navy has given up the idea of trying to deliver humanitarian aid directly to Myanmar and will instead divert its cargo to neighbouring Thailand, the French Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Sunday. The statement said the UN World Food Programme would take charge of the shipment and ensure it gets to victims of Cyclone Nargis that devastated Myanmar's Irrawaddy delta earlier this month.

Rising food prices could spark worldwide unrest and threaten political stability, the United Nations

Myanmar's junta has given the World Food Program permission to use helicopters to send aid to cyclone survivors, the United Nations said on Tuesday, as flags flew at half-staff across the country to mourn the dead. The first day of a three-day mourning period passed in torrential rain and diplomatic prodding of the reclusive generals to allow more international aid after Cyclone Nargis hit in early May, leaving 134,000 people dead or missing.

About 70 per cent of Myanmar's hungry cyclone survivors remain without UN food aid more than two weeks after the disaster, forcing them to leave their villages, relief workers said on Monday. With the junta so far resisting calls to allow enough foreign disaster experts in to help direct the emergency effort, supplies are stacking up in Yangon with only small trucks to get aid to some two million needy people.