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| Europe |
| UKRAINE: It's famine time again |
| 2003-06-28 |
| Where's Walter Duranty when you need him? KIEV - Officials across Ukraine announced plans Friday to buy grain abroad to allay fears of shortages in the former breadbasket of the Soviet Union. "Make bread, not Frantic hoarding has been reported across the country of 48 million, with Ukrainians snapping up flour, buckwheat, sugar and pasta - sometimes intercepting the staples as they are unloaded from trucks. Ukraine's harvest is expected to plunge some 40 percent this year. The hoarding began after reports of market manipulation. Yuriy Rossada, deputy mayor of the capital Kiev, said the city would buy at least 165,350 tons of grain from Russia, Poland, Hungary and Kazakhstan. Some 44,100 tons have already been imported after an extraordinarily harsh winter weather and a dry summer that wiped out much of the country's crops. Officials in the western city of Lviv will buy 330,695 tons of grain from Hungary. From "breadbasket" to "basketcase." |
| Posted by:Steve White |