UN Human Rights Council Holds Special Session On World Food Crisis (2/2)

Arbour said the current food crisisstems from several factors including distortions in supply and demand and unfair trade policies. She said a failure to respond to the food crisis in a comprehensive" class="hjdict" word="comprehensive" target=_blank>comprehensive way could trigger a domino effect by putting at risk other fundamental rights, including the right to health or to education.
　
"Very few issues speak as forcefully as this one about individual rights and collective action and about the intolerable" class="hjdict" word="intolerable" target=_blank>intolerable inequalities that affect millions through no fault of their own."
　
Prices of staple" class="hjdict" word="staple" target=_blank>staple food such as rice, wheat, corn and oils have more than doubled since March. This has set off riots in some 40 of the world's poorer countries, where people spend up to 80 percent of their family incomes on food.

The newly appointed Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Olivier De Schutter blames much of the food crisis on the cultivation" class="hjdict" word="cultivation" target=_blank>cultivation of crops for biofuels instead of for food.

In his speech to the U.N. session, he renewed his call for a freeze on new investment in biofuels and called upon the United States and Europe to rethink policies, which are bad for both the environment and food security.

参考译文：

Arbour说当前的粮食危机由几方面因素造成，其中包括供需两方的不协调以及有失公平的贸易政策。她说，若不能全面解决粮食危机，它将引发的连锁反应会使包括健康和受教育权利在内的其他基本权利也难以保证。

"没什么事情会比这件更强烈地表明个人的权利和集体的行为，它也表明不可容忍的、影响到数百万无辜人的不平等(状况)。"

诸如大米、小麦、玉米和食用油等主食的价格自三月份起翻了不止一倍，导致全球大约40个贫穷国家发生了社会动荡。在这些国家，人们用在食物上的开销就占去了家庭收入的百分之八十。

联合国最新任命的食品权利特别报告起草人Olivier De Schutter指出，粮食危机很大程度上归咎于种植的农作物被用作生物燃料，而不是被食用。

他在联合国特别会议的讲话中，再次呼吁暂停对生物燃料的新投资，号召美国和欧洲反思对环境和粮食安全造成伤害的政策。

TAG: voa,voa下载,voa标准英语,voa英语,voa news,voa english,voa standard,voa听力,美国之音