India: Farmer protest fuels opposition hopes of denting Modi’s appeal
RUPAM JAIN, RAJENDRA JADHAV and MANOJ KUMAR, of Reuters, take a more in-depth look at the ongoing farmer protests in India…
Prolonged drought deepens Afghanistan’s humanitarian crisis
Nahr-e-Shahi, AfghanistanReuters In parched brown hills in north Afghanistan, Abdul Hahad tears stalks of wheat out of the arid earth. In the third year of water shortages and high temperatures, his harvest is barely enough to support his family. The 55-year-old farmer from Nahr-e-Shahi district in Balkh province used to plant two or even three […]
Sight-Seeing: We want God to be like Batman
Writing from the US, Catholic columnist THOMAS REESE says – in an article first published on Religion News Service – that deep in our hearts, we want God to beat up our enemies and punish evildoers…
Wheat can’t be “weapon of war”, Pope says, urging lifting of Ukraine block
Vatican CityReuters Pope Francis appealed to authorities on Wednesday to lift a block on exports of wheat from Ukraine, saying the grain could not be used as a “weapon of war”. Many millions of people, particularly in the world’s poorest countries, depend on wheat from Ukraine, the Pope told a general audience of thousands of […]
EU offers farmers aid, more land to grow due to Ukraine war
Brussels, BelgiumReuters The European Union will distribute €500 million to help farmers and allow them to grow crops on fallow land to mitigate food price spikes and potential shortages resulting from Russia’s war in Ukraine. Published on Wednesday, the proposals by the EU’s executive European Commission also include assistance to Ukraine to help its farmers […]
In Ghana, bakers feel the heat of rising inflation
Accra, GhanaReuters Blazing heat radiated from the wood-fired oven of the Bethel Brothers Bakery in Ghana’s capital Accra, as a dozen men hastily shaped dough into hundreds of rolls that would be scattered through the city the following morning. The bakery, founded nearly 25 years ago by childhood friends Raphael Borketey and David Eshun, churns […]
Ukraine war threatens to make bread a luxury in the Middle East
Aden, Yemen/Cairo, EgyptThomson Reuters Foundation The war in Ukraine may be unfolding several thousand miles away, but 32-year-old Ilham fears her family will feel its consequences on their dinner table in Yemen. Conflict between Ukraine and Russia, which provide more than a quarter of the world’s wheat exports, has sent global prices to a 13-year high – causing […]
GreenSight: ‘Chittah’ or wheat
ALVIN JOHNSON looks at where the ‘chittah’, translated as wheat, appears in the Bible…
GreenSight: ‘Zizania’ or Darnel…
ALVIN JOHNSON looks at the plant which Jesus refers to as ‘tares’ in the ‘Parable of The ‘Wheat and the Tares’…
StrangeSights: A watch to stop face-touching; a presidential poet pays tribute to wheat; and, ‘Wild West’ town for sale…
DAVID ADAMS reports on the odder side of life…