Today a special session of the U.N. Security Council was held, on the topic, “Famine and Conflict-Driven Food Insecurity,” convened by the U.S., the rotating chair for the month of August. Sec. of State Antony Blinken opened the proceedings, presided for a while, and gave the U.S. position on the topic. He blamed Russia for world hunger, which was echoed by the Ambassadors from the UK and France.
Blinken had many observors and guest nations present, from the Holy See, to more than 25 nations, and besides bashing Russia, his themes included the pat explanations that climate change and conflict account for most of the hunger in the world. One pathetic note is that he invited, as a briefer, a woman representing the manufacturers of the child emergency nutrition food, “Plumpy Nut,” a good product, to, in effect, present cheap-shot truisms about 1) how bad it is for a child to die, and how good it is for children to have food.
The Chinese Ambassador said that the world food situation is complex, and that a new “more fair international trade order” is needed. He specifically criticized food “monopoly merchants,” food speculation, and other characteristics of the present-day globalist food complex.
Russian Ambassador Polyansky hit hard at the hypocrisy of the pat explanations that climate change and “conflict” were the root causes of food shortages, and he set the record straight on how the second part of the 2022 July Black Sea Grain Initiative was not honored by the West. He gave figures on many things. Russia has 262,000 tons of fertilizer it will give to countries in need, but it is being held up in Europe. Only 20,000 tons have arrived in Mali; and 44,000 tons in Kenya.
He scored the examples of the U.S. causing food shortages in Libya, Syria, Yemen. Syria was a wheat exporter until the invasion by the U.S., which is still there illegally and stealing grain.
Polyansky ripped into food “donations with conditions.” That is what is taking place in Afghanistan. In Syria, there is the US/UK issue over cross-border aid corridors. Look at the sudden cuts in food and energy to Niger, which the EU extols. Does Josep Borell think that people quit starving after a coup, so they don’t need food any more?
Polyansky reiterated the tonnages and destinations of the cost-free grain going from Russia to Africa. There will be 25,000 to 50,000 tons of grain going to Eritrea, Niger and Mali. After saying much more, he ended by asking, Do you want to be geopolitical, or do you want to help the world?
