{"id":61581,"date":"2020-02-11T15:13:37","date_gmt":"2020-02-11T07:13:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=61581"},"modified":"2020-02-11T15:13:38","modified_gmt":"2020-02-11T07:13:38","slug":"un-calls-for-donations-to-tackle-desert-locusts-in-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=61581","title":{"rendered":"UN calls for donations to tackle desert locusts in Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img src=\"http:\/\/s.rfi.fr\/media\/display\/2560eb8e-4c59-11ea-af55-005056bfd1d9\/w:980\/p:16x9\/8247543350a4f9dc097cc85cbd502178c34c9bee.jpg\" alt=\"Locusts swarms, seen here in Kenya, have triggered UN concern\"\/><figcaption>Locusts swarms, seen here in Kenya, have triggered UN concern<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>UNITED NATIONS, Feb 11 (NNN-AGENCIES) &#8212; The UN undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs called on the international community to help East African countries affected by locust swarms, expressing his deep concern over the situation.<br><br>&#8220;There are 13 million people in the affected countries who are severely food insecure now,&#8221; said Mark Lowcock during a UN press conference. &#8220;Ten million of those people are in the places affected by locusts.&#8221;<br><br>Lowcock, who said he had recently released $10 million for the crisis, warned that &#8220;unless there was a rapid response, we are going to have a huge problem later in the year.&#8221;<br><br>The locusts have devastated food supplies in Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia. They were reported in Uganda on Sunday.<br><br>According to Lowcock, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimated at the end of January that a locust control plan would cost $76 million.<br><br>&#8220;What we have so far is just $20 million,&#8221; he said.<br><br>&#8220;Unless we get a grip of this in the next two or three or four weeks, we are worried we are going to have a really serious problem.&#8221;<br><br>Lowcock said the locust outbreak was &#8220;the worst for 70 years in Kenya, for 25 years in Ethiopia, Somalia,&#8221; and said one of the reasons behind the swarms was climate change.<br><br>Desert locusts &#8212; whose destructive infestations cause major crop damage &#8212; are a species of grasshopper that live largely solitary lives until a combination of conditions promote breeding and lead them to form massive swarms.<br><br>Swarms formed in eastern Ethiopia and northern Somalia have moved through the region.<br><br>The FAO says the current invasion is known as an &#8220;upsurge&#8221; &#8212; when an entire region is affected &#8212; however, if it gets worse and cannot be contained, over a year or more, it would become what is known as a &#8220;plague&#8221; of locusts.<br><br>There have been six major desert locust plagues in the 1900s, the last of which was in 1987-89. The last major upsurge was in 2003-05. &#8212; NNN-AGENCIES<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>UNITED NATIONS, Feb 11 (NNN-AGENCIES) &#8212; The UN undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs called on the international community to help East African countries affected by locust swarms, expressing his deep concern over the situation. &#8220;There are 13 million people in the affected countries who are severely food insecure now,&#8221; said Mark Lowcock during a UN [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[213],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61581"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=61581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61581\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=61581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=61581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=61581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}