At least 73 million people depend on the World Food Programme (WFP). Without the food delivered by the programme, they would starve. Their future is looking grim because the WFP can no longer afford to buy the food aid it needs. So this week, the WFP is pleading with donor governments to find $500 million by the end of April. If the money doesn’t come, rations that are already sparse will be cut.
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Heathrow is built on Grade 1 farmland, the best and most productive, much of it now buried under concrete and tarmac. Friends of the Earth points out that just the area under tarmac is equal to 200 miles of three-lane motorway. The huge new Terminal 5 is scheduled to open this month, March 2008, and now government wants to build a third runway, which would mean the demolition of the village of Sipson, currently outside the airport. Sipson, like Heathrow itself, is in the Green Belt, a designation that is supposed to prevent the loss of countryside. Terminal 5 is the largest building ever constructed within the Green Belt, which to the west and south-west of London is a lost cause, a cause to which national government shows scant allegiance.
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