
MYANMAR’S Rakhine state, which is home to the Rohingya minority and engulfed in a conflict between government forces and a powerful ethnic group, could face an imminent acute famine, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has warned.
In a damning report published on Thursday, the UN agency says that “a perfect storm is brewing” that has put western Rakhine “on the precipice of an unprecedented disaster.”
The report, titled: Rakhine: A Famine in the Making, points to a chain of interlinked developments, including restrictions on goods from elsewhere in Myanmar and from neighbouring Bangladesh, an absence of income for residents, hyperinflation, significantly reduced food production and a lack of essential services and a social safety net.

Money makers already exploit cleaning and catering contracts while the military-industrial complex diverts billions from health to warfare — but Bevan’s vision will endure as long as people fight for it, writes ROGER MCKENZIE

ROGER McKENZIE looks at the gradual demise of US’s nefarious influence around the world and the complexity of impending freedom