UN pledges $1.2b to fight food shortages
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The United Nations has announced it will provide an additional $1.2 billion in food aid for the 60 nations hardest hit by rising prices.
UN World Food Program head Josette Sheeran says the number of people in severe poverty could double unless action is taken soon.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon has told a food summit in Rome that the world is duty-bound to act immediately.
"This is a fight we cannot afford to lose. The enemy's hunger. Hunger degrades everything we have been fighting for in recent years and decades," he said.
"Recent riots and protests show that hunger and the threat of hunger breed unrest and instability."
