I came across this website on the web recently:

http://www.newstimeafrica.com/archives/21558

It states, "3.7 million are on the brink of starvation...
Somalia buries its dead from starvation and millions more
in Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda have been struck
by the worst drought in the region for decades.
Many in Somalia are fleeing to neighbouring Kenya and
Ethiopia. Up to 100,000 have arrived in Mogadishu in the
past two months..."

I can't help wondering what is going on in this world when
people are starving and yet all over the world hundreds of
thousands of scientists and engineers devote their skills
to planning new and
more efficient ways for humans to kill one another,
millions of workers labour to manufacture instruments
of death and tens of millions of soldiers train for combat -
many actually go to war, From a moral and even an economic
point of view, this vast investment of human ingenuity and energy
seems a tragic waste. And looming over all these military
preparations and conuterpreparations is humanity's ultimate
threat, the unleashing of full-scale nuclear war.

Why can't we find ways to reverse this process and divert our
unprecedented energy and resources to the real problems that face
us, including poverty,, disease, overpopulation, injustice,
oppression, and the devastation of our natural environment.
Instead of destroying why don't we enhance the life on the planet?
People starving, children dieing - while we invest so much money in
fighting wars? It doesn't make sense.

What do others think?

Two subjects here this one and the Norway one bring to me so much pain,
I have not yet posted in the Norway one,but I have very nearly cried openly at the pain.
Lexi this horror hurts so very much.
Another thread has told about it, well I thought.
Yours focuses on answers it has great Merritt.
A man just one, interviewed on TV, said I have been given a tent by some group my 12 children and I could have died but we made it.
Remember food aid, I do, then again just a decade after, me too.
Now again, and terrorists will not let us in lawlessness rules no one under stands birth control.
I may well be an awful bloke, both crying then saying it is imposable to save them all, or to change anything.
Unless we impose rule of law, stop making people rich with our donations, teach birth control .
Lexi in the end, in your lifetime ,this is the very start of mass starvation mass deaths and we can not stop it.
Unless we push some country's out of the dark ages into the 21st century,and I do not think we want to in a time the world stands close to recession. true depression.

Yes these are terrible situations but as per usual it's us, the masses who fail to act. We're the only ones who can bring about change but we don't. Why don't we ? Because we feel much cosier by pussyfooting rather than by being cruel to be kind.
We listen to experts rather than people who know and we employ people at immoral cost to consult with these experts rather than engage people who not only want to help but actually can help. We send money rather than implements for these poor to help themselves. We help people who don't help themselves yet we put up barriers for people who want to help themselves. Many of these volunteers aren't volunteers at all, they're people who simply use this to get free travel & then demand recognition afterwards.
In short we're short of integrity & genuine good will. Just look at the many religions ? Do we see them helping the poor in those countries ? No, it's much easier to bring many refugees to other countries & de-stabilise them then sort out the dilemma at the source. Then, when someone has had a gut full of this stupidity & does something terrible then he is a madman.

individual,

You talk from ignorance.
Of course, technical aid is given to communities from aid. Wells are dug, children are educated, small scale farming and husbandry are taught, community members are educated about disease and family planning.

Many aid organisations concentrate on a relatively small area and assist villagers to become self supporting - at the same time children are educated in school. The child I sponsor in Africa is required to learn three languages - her local dialect, the national language and English. I receive detailed reports of the progress of development within her village and her own development.

I'm sure there are many areas where aid organisations don't get it right, but you are saying that village infrastructure is not attended to - and I am telling you that it is a priority and is seen as the most basic building block for self support for these people.

everybody know and watch the news about Somalia, but what do you do for it??

Poirot,
I live & work in an area where people receive so much support that it's literally to their detriment.
The many aid organisations in other parts of the world aren't as successful as you imply.
There are more starving people now than there were before the proliferation of aid agencies.
Most of the major benefactors of aid organisations have been corrupt regimes & aid agency directors. Please show some integrity & don't say this isn't true.