DAVID BEASLEY

The spike in food, fuel and fertilizer prices sparked by the war in Ukraine is threatening to push countries around the world into famine, a U.N. official warns.

The head of the U.N. food agency is warning that the spike in food, fuel and fertilizer prices sparked by the war in Ukraine is threatening to push countries around the world into famine.

Russian missiles are destroying warehouses and equipment and Russian warships and mines are blocking ports Ukraine needs to export grain.

Two U.N. food agencies are warning of multiple, looming food crises on the planet.

Families across Africa are paying about 45% more for wheat flour as Russia's war in Ukraine blocks exports from the Black Sea.

The head of the U.N.’s World Food Program is telling billionaires it’s “time to step up” as the global threat of food insecurity rises because of Russia’s war in Ukraine.

With U.S. record shortages and high prices, world leaders try to get essential commodities out of war-torn Ukraine.

Russia's blockade of Ukrainian ports is raising the risk of a hunger crisis around the world, G-7 nations warned Saturday. The World Food Program said rising food prices will force it to further slash rations.

The United States says it will put a spotlight on the impact of the war in Ukraine and other conflicts on the diminishing availability of food and rising prices at two U.N. events later this month.

Ukraine's ports have been cut off from the rest of the world and farmers are fighting during planting season.

Scott Pelley reports from Odesa, where the U.N.'s World Food Programme is desperately trying to reach starving Ukrainians and pleading for the reopening of Ukraine's seaports.

The following is a transcript of an interview with David Beasley, head of the World Food Programme, that aired Sunday, April 17, 2022, on "Face the Nation."

For Easter, "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" explores the global food crisis caused by the war in Ukraine and how a Catholic charity is helping migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Beasley said the conflict between Russia and Ukraine has caused a dramatic increase in the need for food aid around the world.

Ukraine is sending top officials to Washington for next week’s spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

More than 900 bodies of civilians were discovered in the Kyiv region following the withdrawal of Russian forces.

The head of the U.N.’s World Food Program says people are being “starved to death” in the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol, and he predicted the country’s humanitarian crisis is likely to worsen as Russia intensifies its assault in the coming weeks

The head of the U.N.’s World Food Program says people are being “starved to death” in the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol, and he predicted the country’s humanitarian crisis is likely to worsen as Russia intensifies its assault in the coming weeks.

U.S. and U.N. officials say the war will "have global context impact beyond anything we've seen since World War II."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says he has recalled Ukraine’s ambassadors to Georgia and Morocco.

The U_N_ food chief is warning that the war in Ukraine has created “a catastrophe on top of a catastrophe” and will have a global impact “beyond anything we’ve seen since World War II.”

Farmers worldwide are weighing whether to change their planting patterns and grow more wheat this spring as Russia's war in Ukraine has choked off or thrown into question grain supplies from a region known as “the breadbasket of the world.”.

The U.N. says Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie has visited war-wrecked Yemen to show solidarity with displaced families in hopes of mobilizing support for an incoming fundraising conference.

The United Nations says it is immediately allocating $20 million to scale up U.N. humanitarian operations in Ukraine following Russia’s invasion

Leave it to Elon Musk to stir up controversy without saying (or tweeting) a word.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk says in a regulatory filing that he donated about 5 million shares of company stock worth roughly $5.7 billion to an unidentified charity in November.

The World Food Program has suspended its operations across Sudan’s province of North Darfur following recent attacks on its warehouses

The Tesla CEO challenged the United Nations to break down how a mega-donation from him would avert famine. So it did.

The Tesla CEO challenged the United Nations to break down how a mega-donation from him would avert famine. So it did.

Elon Musk reportedly made $36 billion in a single day. What if he gave a sixth of that to the World Food Programme? We ask researchers how much of a change $6 billion could bring.

A growing number of near-starving children are brought every day to the main children's hospital in the Afghan capital, Kabul.

"The number of people knocking on famine's door now is unprecedented," said David Beasley.

Elon Musk tweeted an ancient Chinese poem, a Rorschach test for his 62 million Twitter followers and others.

The head of the U.N. food aid agency says the drought-stricken island nation of Madagascar is a "wake up call" to what the world can expect in coming years due to climate change.

Last week, the director of the United Nation's World Food Programme said if the world's top billionaires just donated a fraction of their wealth, millions of people who are at risk of starving to death can be saved. Elon Musk has responded.

Musk has asked the UN's World Food Programme head to publish a detailed spending proposal.

Elon Musk says he will sell $6 billion worth of Tesla stock and donate it to the United Nations’ food agency if it could show how the money would solve world hunger.

Last week, the director of the United Nation's World Food Programme said if the world's top billionaires just donated a fraction of their wealth, millions of people who are at risk of starving to death can be saved. Elon Musk has responded.

The billionaire was responding to comments by the UN World Food Programme's director who said $6 billion could save 42 million people dying from hunger.

Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos could help prevent millions from starving to death with small percentages of their individual net worths, the director of the World Food Programme says.

The head of the U.N. food agency warns that 16 million people in Yemen "are marching towards starvation" and says food rations for millions will be cut in October unless new funding arrives.

The head of the U.N. food agency says 16 million people in Yemen are marching toward starvation and more funding is needed.

The U.S. official who wrote a Pulitzer Prize-winning book on genocide is visiting Ethiopia next week to press the government to lift what the U.S. calls a blockade on humanitarian aid to the conflict-hit Tigray region.

The head of the United Nations World Food Program says the agency will “run out of food” in Ethiopia’s conflict-hit Tigray region on Friday, while hundreds of thousands of people there face the world’s worst famine crisis in a decade.

The U.N. World Food Program says southern Madagascar is in the throes of back-to-back droughts that are pushing 400,000 people toward starvation.

The U.N. World Food Program says southern Madagascar is in the throes of back-to-back droughts that are pushing 400,000 people toward starvation, and have already caused deaths from severe hunger. Lola Castro, WFP’s regional director in southern Africa, told a news conference Friday that she witnessed “a very dramatic and desperate situation” during her recent visit with WFP chief David Beasley to the Indian Ocean island nation of 26 million people. In 28 years working for WFP on four continents, Castro said she had “never seen anything this bad” except in 1998 in Bahr el-Gazal in what is now South Sudan.

For a second time this month, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has reached an agreement with the sort of global aid agencies he has often shunned to bring help to his country’s people.

The United Nations chief says the world’s failure to unite on tackling COVID-19 has created wide inequalities.

FILE - In this Nov. 23, 2019 file photo, a malnourished newborn baby lies in an incubator at the Al-Sabeen Hospital in Sanaa, Yemen. Beasley told The Associated Press in an interview Wednesday, March 10, 2021, that conditions in war-wrecked Yemen are hell. U.S. President Joe Biden’s envoy to Yemen, Tim Lenderking, last week urged the Houthis to agree to a cease-fire proposal. AdOn the humanitarian front, Yemen, which imports most of its food and other commodities, remains the world’s worst crisis. A U.N. pledging conference on March 1 raised a disappointing $1.7 billion, less than half of what aid agencies need this year, which means “we don’t have enough money to stop famine,” Lowcock said.

(AP Photo/Hani Mohammed, File)The United States announced a resumption of aid to Yemen’s rebel-held north on Friday to fight a looming famine as the country’s nearly six-year-old war grinds on. U.N. officials warned that a blockade of fuel deliveries to a main port was heightening the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. AdThe war began when the Houthi rebels seized the capital, Sanaa, and much of the north in 2014. AdThe Biden administration as of Friday will “cautiously resume” support to humanitarian groups working in Yemen’s north, said Sarah Charles, a senior official for humanitarian assistance at the U.S. AID. Beasley, the World Food Program chief, said the fuel shortages threatened to undermine what remains of Yemen's private sector and swell the numbers of Yemenis needing aid.

FILE - In this Saturday, June 27, 2020 file photo, trainees parade with the wooden mock guns which they use to train with, during the visit of the defense minister to a military training center in Owiny Ki-Bul, Eastern Equatoria, South Sudan. The scale of violence in South Sudan is "a lot worse" than during the country's five-year civil war, a United Nations commission announced Friday, Feb. 19, 2021, accusing senior officials of supporting armed groups that at times have included tens of thousands of fighters. (AP Photo/Maura Ajak, File)CAMEROON – The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously Friday to extend the almost 20,000-strong U.N. peacekeeping mission in South Sudan, with a mandate “to advance a three-year strategic vision to prevent a return to civil war” and build peace both nationally and locally. The civil war has killed nearly 400,000 people and displaced millions, and the death toll keeps rising. And it condemned the mobilization of these armed groups by members of the government’s forces and by armed opposition groups.

(UNTV via AP)CAMEROON – Secretary-General Antonio Guterres made an urgent appeal Thursday for $5.5 billion to prevent a “catastrophe” for 34 million people in over three dozen countries who are just one step away from famine driven by conflict -- and the World Food Program chief warned that 270 million people are facing “a hunger crisis” this year. “So, today, I must warn you that we are once again sliding toward the brink of the abyss,” he said. “Now, 270 million people are facing a hunger crisis.”Both Guterres and Beasley stressed that the hunger crisis and looming famines are primarily driven by conflict and are entirely preventable. “Around half of all children under five -- 2.3 million -- are projected to face acute malnutrition in 2021. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said “acute malnutrition can trigger other risks, like gender-based violence or the exploitation and abuse of children."

FILE - In this Nov. 23, 2019 file photo, a woman holds her malnourished boy at a feeding center at the Al-Sabeen Hospital in Sanaa, Yemen. Beasley visited Yemen earlier this week, including the capital of Sanaa which is under the control of Iran-backed Houthi rebels. He said that at a child malnutrition ward in a Sanaa hospital he saw children wasting away from lack of food. A pledging conference last month raised a little more than half from the international community of what was needed to continue food aid services for the next year. AdOne source of funding for Yemen could be a new anonymous aid fund.

Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield also urged Eritrean forces to leave. Thomas-Greenfield said after the council meeting that the United States “urges the Ethiopian government to support an immediate end to the fighting in Tigray” -- and that means “the prompt withdrawal of Eritrean forces” and forces from Tigray’s neighboring Amhara region. AdAccounts of atrocities against residents of Tigray were detailed in reports by The Associated Press and by Amnesty International. “We have identified at least 600,000 people who we know need help but who have not yet received any humanitarian aid whatsoever,” Lowcock said. Lowcock said Tigray may not be the only hot spot in Ethiopia.

On Friday, Feb. 12, 2021, the United Nations is sounding the alarm over projections that more than 2 million Yemeni children are facing starvation this year. Compounding the crisis, around 1.2 million pregnant or breastfeeding women in Yemen are also projected to be acutely malnourished this year. Ad“The crisis in Yemen is a toxic mix of conflict, economic collapse and a severe shortage of funding," Beasley explained. UNICEF estimates that virtually all of Yemen’s 12 million children require some sort of assistance. “Malnourished children are more vulnerable to diseases ...

Bezos is one of the 50 Americans who gave the most to charity in 2020, according to the Chronicle of Philanthropys annual rankings. “There has been change building among private donors.”All told, the 50 biggest donors contributed $24.7 billion in 2020, compared with $15.8 billion in 2019. The $1 billion-plus of giving by each of the top five on the Philanthropy 50 matches last year’s record. No more than three donors gave $1 billion or more in any of the previous years. Colleges and universities received $2.2 billion from Philanthropy 50 donors in 2020.

In this Sunday, Dec. 6, 2020, photo provided by Nobel Prize Outreach, Louise Glck stands beside the medal awarded to her for the 2020 Nobel Prize in Literature outside her home in Cambridge, Mass. The pomp and ceremony of the Nobel prize ceremonies were altered this year amid measures to slow the spread of the coronavirus. (Daniel Ebersole/ Nobel Prize Outreach via AP)STOCKHOLM – The pomp and ceremony of the Nobel prize ceremonies have been reined in this year amid measures to slow the spread of the coronavirus. Instead, their achievements will be recognized and rewarded at low-key ceremonies where they live and work in Europe and the United States. A Nobel prize comes with a 10-milion krona ($1.1 million) cash award — to be shared in some cases — diplomas and gold medals.

COPENHAGEN – The winner of the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize — the World Food Program — and the Norwegian Nobel Committee said Wednesday they have jointly agreed to postpone the in-person award ceremony in Oslo next month because of the coronavirus pandemic. The Nobel Peace Prize ceremony usually is held at Oslo City Hall. Now, the Norwegian Nobel Committee is planning "a digital award ceremony where the WFP will be presented with the medal and diploma.” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is also expected to attend the virtual forum. Earlier this month, the Norwegian government had granted an exemption from its two-week quarantine requirement for arriving visitors so representatives from the winner of the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize could attend the award ceremony in Oslo. He called the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize “an important event of great national and international interest.”“We want to make it easy for the prize winner to be physically present this year as well.

“We were able to avert it in 2020 ... because the world leaders responded with money, stimulus packages, deferral of debt,” he said. “I’m telling them you’re not going to have enough money to fund all the projects you historically fund,” he said. “If I could get that coupled with our normal money, then we avert famine around the world” and minimize destabilization as well as migration. “There’s about three dozen countries that could possibly enter the famine conditions if we don’t have the money we need,” Beasley said. Beasley said a COVID-19 vaccine “will create some optimism that hopefully will help jump the economies around the world, particularly the Western economies.

World Food Program (WFP) Executive Director David Beasley speaks to the media about the organization's Nobel Peace Prize win, at the airport in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, late Friday, Oct. 9, 2020. (AP Photo/Sam Mednick)TANZANIA – Even before COVID-19 became an issue, World Food Program chief David Beasley was warning global leaders that the world would face the worst humanitarian crisis since World War II in 2020. Then came COVID-19 which quickly became a pandemic that has swept the world, escalating the need for food — and U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says it is still not under control. “Every one of the 690 million hungry people in the world today has the right to live peacefully and without hunger,” Beasley said in a statement on the WFP website. “Today, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has turned the global spotlight on them and on the devastating consequences of conflict.

World Food Program (WFP) Executive Director David Beasley speaks to the media about the organization's Nobel Peace Prize win, at the airport in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, late Friday, Oct. 9, 2020. The World Food Program won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for fighting hunger and seeking to end its use as "a weapon of war and conflict" at a time when the coronavirus pandemic has driven millions more people to the brink of starvation. (AP Photo/Sam Mednick)OUAGADOUGOU – The head of the World Food Program said winning the Nobel Peace Prize while he was visiting the impoverished and war-weakened Sahel was a message to the world that it should not forget the region. “The fact that I was in the Sahel when we received the announcement is really a message from above that, hey world with all the things going on around the world today please don’t forget about the people in the Sahel!" “We can avert famine in Burkina Faso but we’ve got to have two things, money and access.

The United Nations’ World Food Program was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday in recognition of its efforts to fight hunger across the globe. AdvertisementHowever, the United States remains by far the biggest donor to the World Food Program, which relies mainly on contributions from governments. Deepest thanks @NobelPrize for honouring the World Food Programme with the 2020 #NobelPeacePrize. Friday’s Peace Prize is the 101st to be awarded since 1901. AdvertisementThe 318 candidates nominated for the peace prize this year included 211 individuals and 107 organizations, the fourth-largest pool in the award’s history.

FILE - In this Sept. 9, 2015 file photo, a child carries a parcel from the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) in Mwenezi, Zimbabwe. The WFP has won the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize for its efforts to combat hunger and food insecurity around the globe. The announcement was made Friday Oct. 9, 2020 in Oslo by Berit Reiss-Andersen, the chair of the Nobel Committee. “The World Food Program works at the intersection of those two problems (and) it's going to face an increasing workload in the coming years." Some, however, noted that the World Food Program’s top donors are also major food exporters and often involved in the sale of arms to conflict zones where the agency works, from Afghanistan to Yemen.

In this Nov. 14, 2008, file photo, a woman receives a bag of maize meal from the World Food Program in the town of Rutshuru, eastern Congo. The World Food Program chief warned Thursday, Sept. 17, 2020, that millions of people are closer to starvation because of the deadly combination of conflict, climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic and he urged donor nations and billionaires to help feed them and ensure their survival. (AP Photo/Karel Prinsloo)TANZANIA – The World Food Program chief warned Thursday that millions of people are closer to starvation because of the deadly combination of conflict, climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic and he urged donor nations and billionaires to help feed them and ensure their survival. And in Nigeria and South Sudan, millions more people have become food insecure because of the pandemic, he said. He said WFP needs $4.9 billion to feed 30 million people who will die without the program's assistance for a year.

India's coronavirus cases jumped by another 96,424 in the past 24 hours, showing little sign of leveling. The announcement came as the university reported 130 newly confirmed coronavirus cases, bringing the total to 671 cases since classes began about a month ago. Little says Idaho residents have done well in their precautions, such as wearing face coverings, but virus infections have continued. John Hopkins University says that through Thursday, Idaho had more than 36,000 confirmed coronavirus cases, with 434 deaths. That tally raised the state’s rolling average number of daily new confirmed coronavirus cases to 726, more than double 381 just one week ago.

Maas said that Lebanon needs a "strong reboot" and far-reaching economic reforms to rebuild trust with its citizens. Heiko Maas spoke ahead of his trip to Beirut, following last week's explosion at the city's port that killed at least 171 people and wounded thousands. (Dalati Nohra via AP)BEIRUT Germany stands ready to help Lebanon with reconstruction and further investment after last week's massive explosion, but any support will be linked to economic reforms and an end to pervasive corruption in Lebanon, Germany's foreign minister said Wednesday. Ahead of his arrival in Beirut, Maas said Lebanon needs a strong reboot and far-reaching economic reforms to rebuild trust with its citizens. I think everyone in Lebanon has to recognize that things cannot continue like this, this country needs big reforms, he said.

For many residents the "community pot" is their only defense against a hunger that's become a constant feature of life amid the new coronavirus pandemic. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)JOHANNESBURG Millions of people have been pushed into hunger by the coronavirus pandemic, the U.N. World Food Program said Monday as it appealed for nearly $5 billion to help feed the growing numbers in poor and middle-income countries. The frontline in the battle against the coronavirus is shifting from the rich world to the poor world, said David Beasley, WFPs executive director. Until the day we have a medical vaccine, food is the best vaccine against chaos." Coronavirus infection levels are climbing when food stocks in some parts of the world are already low.

We are entering a very complicated stage, said Miguel Barreto, the WFPs regional director for Latin America and the Caribbean. The escalating hunger comes as the COVID-19 pandemic increasingly ravages Latin America. The new estimates for Latin America indicate the region will be especially hard hit. In Haiti, hunger could more than double, from 700,000 to 1.6 million. Latin America and the Caribbean are expected to see a 5.3% economic contraction this year, possibly a sharper drop than during the Great Depression.

Famines of "biblical proportions" are becoming a serious risk as the coronavirus crisis threatens to double the number of people nearing starvation, a U.N. body has warned. Addressing the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday, WFP Executive Director David Beasley said the world was facing "the worst humanitarian crisis since World War Two." Beasley requested $350 million in new funding to establish a network of logistics hubs that could keep global humanitarian supply chains moving. In 2020, Yemen was likely to suffer the world's worst food crisis, the WFP said, as a result of conflict, a macroeconomic crisis, pests and climate shocks. Arif Husain, WFP's Senior Economist, said in a statement on Tuesday that the coronavirus crisis could be "catastrophic for millions who are already hanging by a thread."

TANZANIA – The head of the U.N. food agency warned Tuesday that, as the world is dealing with the coronavirus pandemic, it is also “on the brink of a hunger pandemic” that could lead to “multiple famines of biblical proportions” within a few months if immediate action isn’t taken. According to WFP, the 10 countries with the worst food crises in 2019 were Yemen, Congo, Afghanistan, Venezuela, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Syria, Sudan, Nigeria and Haiti. Beasley said in many countries the food crisis is the result of conflict. “The truth is, we do not have time on our side, so let’s act wisely — and let’s act fast," Beasley said. “I do believe that with our expertise and partnerships, we can bring together the teams and the programs necessary to make certain the COVID-19 pandemic does not become a humanitarian and food crisis catastrophe."