It is next-to-impossible to comprehend the magnitude of world
poverty. See if you can visualize the faces of three billion
people, many of them hungry children, flashing past your face on
a giant TV screen, one at a time. Imagine how long that would
take. You will have some idea of the extent of world poverty.
The 2008 financial and economic collapse that has tens-of-
thousands of people angrily demonstrating on Wall Street and in
more than 100 American and Canadian cities, has hit already-
impoverished underdeveloped countries around the world much
harder. In many countries – particularly in Africa – the
economic crisis, along with a rise in basic food prices, climate
change, and increases in population, has reversed the progress
that has been made over the past few years. Three recent
international reports – which, incidentally, have barely been
covered by the Canadian and U.S. mainstream media* – paint an
increasingly bleak picture: - The number of people worldwide who
are undernourished must be at least one