AP: U.N.: Africa’s locust outbreak needs $76M ‘by, actually, now’
“The worst locust outbreak that parts of East Africa have seen in 70 years needs some $76 million to help control and the money is ‘required by, actually, now,’ the United Nations said Thursday. So far just $15 million has been mobilized to help stop the outbreak that threatens to worsen an already poor hunger situation for millions of people in Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia, and elsewhere, Dominique Bourgeon, emergencies director with the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, told a briefing in Rome…” (Anna, 1/30).

The Telegraph: Africa threatened with severe food crisis as locust ‘mega-swarms’ devour crops
“…The swarms emerged in Yemen early last summer but have since poured into northern Kenya — where a ‘super-swarm’ some 2,400 square kilometers wide was spotted last week. It is only the third time since 1950 that locusts swarms have been seen on this scale. In the last serious locust upsurge, between 2003 and 2005 across some 20 countries in North Africa and the Middle East, roughly $750 million (£574 million) was spent to bring the swarms under control, and some 12 million hectares of land were sprayed with pesticides…” (Newey, 1/26).