"More food riots and uprisings on the way"

[muriel_volestrangler]

I've put the title in quotes because that's the writer's conclusion; it doesn't seem definite to me, but the risk is there. He is a film-maker and the author of The Debt Generation.

Post-Mubarak Egypt 'running out of food'

Egypt is reported to have only four months' supply of wheat on hand and only one month's supply of rice.

According to Al-Ahram, Egypt's leading daily, hoarding of rice by wholesalers has pushed prices up by 35 percent this year.

Read more: http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Energy-Resources/2011/05/18/Post-Mubarak-Egypt-running-out-of-food/UPI-63801305737085/#ixzz1NGSZ7GS0

The situation in Egypt was about to, and perhaps still will, get critical. If food prices, shortages and hunger ignites another street uprising it will not be against an aging dictator who can be thrown to the crowd, it will be against the quasi military government which the US backs. What worries the US is the possibility that if there is another wave of unrest, this time blaming the moderate, largely secular uprising itself, then more radical Islamic groups will rise to prominence. That is why the US is giving money it can ill afford given the fact that it has exceeded its own debt ceiling yet again.

And it is not only the US. This week Saudi Arabia has pledged $4 billion in loans and aid to Egypt. When the Saudi's give you know it's serious.
...
Egypt will not be the last to need money. Here is how much unaffordable wheat the other North African and Middle East nations need with a comparison with the US and EU to make clear how much these nations depend on Wheat.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com.nyud.net:8080/-sthEhO_USKo/TdrSpvp9_CI/AAAAAAAAACI/XFA_ZjCC-KQ/s1600/P1-BA776_WHEATj_NS_20110518220009.jpg

The Arab spring is going to turn nasty. The nations who were hungry will get hungrier and look to us to help them. If we don't there is a real chance they will feel betrayed by us and by Democracy. If that happens then there will be the preachers of hate on hand to offer an alternative.

http://golemxiv-credo.blogspot.com/2011/05/more-food-riots-and-uprisings-on-way.html

[blindpig]

1. Don't think the Us is worried about 'Islamists'.

that's fodder for the fear-mongers. The US is fine with the Saudis, yes? Rather the real fear is a popular regime resistant to the wishes of the US and it's capitalist allies.

This hoarding and inflation of food prices is just another example of the capitalists creating the conditions of their own demise.