CAPITALISM IN ACTION

"Changing weather patterns have decimated crops in several of the world's poorest countries this year, leaving millions in need of food aid and humanitarian workers warning about the dangerous effects of climate change. Farmers in Nepal have been able to produce only half their usual crop, said an Oxfam International report released last week. Livestock are dying of malnutrition in Yemen, according to the humanitarian news service IRIN. And the Red Cross is bracing for the effects of heavy rains across 16 West and Central African nations. All three are the result of extended atypical weather events -- drought, rain, or untimely combinations of both -- in places where subsistence farmers have long depended on predictability. In Nepal, more than 3 million people -- about 10 percent of the population -- will need food aid this year, said Oxfam." (Yahoo News, 2 September) RD