More4 News Blog

If cars and people compete for food

Some disturbing news that didn't get as much pickup as it should. Lester Brown of the Earth Policy Institute, one of the foremost thinkers of global food security, has published an analysis of what could happen if people start using grain to power their cars, writes Ben King.

It's not as crazy as it sounds - convert the grain into alcohol, and you can use it to power an engine. It's being heavily promoted in the US, particularly Iowa, which grows a lot of corn and plays a vital role in choosing US presidents. But it's happening in Asia too.

The same about of grain can fill an SUV tank, or feed a person for a year.

No peace in Darfur

More4’s Nima Elbagir has been to Darfur, to see if the recent ceasefire was having any effect. Her findings were disturbing. Neither the ceasefire, nor the presence of African Union troops have been able to protect the villagers of Darfur.

The janjaweed militias are still burning villages, and the camps of displaced persons are growing ever more rapidly. Here were her thoughts on her return to London.

I got off a plane from Sudan this morning and have circled around my desk since then trying to put my thoughts into some sort of coherent order so I could possibly even begin to explain the chaos of this trip to Darfur.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu talks to More4

Few men can speak with as much moral authority as Archbishop Desmond Tutu. So More4 News was keen to hear his views, about events in South Africa and worldwide.

What does he think about Jacob Zuma, the Deputy President of the African National Congress, who admitted having unprotected sex with a woman he knew to be HIV positive? "You just wanted to tear your hair out of your head hearing what he said."

How about the growing disenchantment of poor blacks, who feel that the ANC hasn't done enough to improve their living conditions?

"I am surprised at the incredible patience that people have shown. You would have said that people who live in those shacks, who live in squalor and who go and work in salubrious, affluent suburbs, largely still white - that they have not gone on the rampage is amazing."

Watch the interview here. Sarah tells her side of the story here.

"My dear child" - Sarah meets Desmond Tutu

"You know it's a special occasion when the journalists bring their own cameras".

It seems I wasn't the first reporter today to ask to have my picture taken with Archbishop Desmond Tutu when I turned up to interview him this morning.

Luckily the woman from The Henley Management College who had invited him to London was very good humoured about taking the pictures.

And the Archbishop himself was extremely good humoured about the queues of journalists waiting to interview him about anything and everything. I followed after a team from Channel 4's Dispatches had asked him about Burma. BBC Radio 4 had him record a charity appeal for TB. And I waited outside while Sky asked him about everything - at great length.

Europe or bust

This year more than a thousand people - mostly young men - have died trying to a reach Europe and a new life.

The real number who die trying to cross the Atlantic in open boats from the West Coast of Africa to the Canaries is far higher - they just never find the bodies.

Spanish patrols have effectively stopped the shortest people smuggling routes from Africa into Spain and the Canaries. Now the smugglers set off on a more dangerous voyage five hundred miles further south from Mauritania.

Watch the report here

Al Qaeda in Darfur

Osama Bin Laden is trying to open a new front in the war on terror - in the heart of Africa.

Whether or not the recent Egyptian attack had a nything to do with Al Qaeda, it did come a day after his latest message attempted to extend his sphere of influence as far as Sudan.

But is it surprising that the conflict in Darfur, which pits Sudan's Islamic government and its Arab militia against African rebel groups, should be drawn into the global clash between al Qaeda and the west?

Nima Elbagir has been talking to a former bin Laden associate in Khartoum - she reports from Sudan on why Darfur risks being the next Iraq.

Watch the report here

Refugee resistance

Refugee numbers are at their lowest for 25 years. So why are so many western governments getting more hostile to them?

The number of refugees and asylum seekers across the world has dropped dramatically in the last five years according to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees or UNHCR.

The report states that there are now 9 point 2 million refugees - the lowest amount for 25 years. But the report states the dynamic of refugees is changing and the international community's "biggest failure" is the issue of internal displacement.

Sarah Smith spoke to the High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres and began by asking him what the UN can do for people who are internally displaced.

Watch the report here

Sudan government bombing Darfur

More4 News has obtained evidence the Sudanese air force has resumed aerial bombardment of villages in Darfur.

It comes in breach of a ceasefire and no-fly zone agreed more than a year ago.

Last week we filmed charred and blackened huts in several villages which had been recently set on fire by Janjaweed militiamen, confirming reports of an increase in attacks since the beginning of the year.

But in the village of Donkey Dreisa, south of Nyala, the damage was clear. Buildings had been reduced to rubble by bombardment which villagers told us came from Sudanese air force Antonov jets.

More 4 News was told that the attack on Donkey Dreisa on February 17th followed earlier aerial bombardment of villages near the town of Omgonya, also in South Darfur.

Hilary Benn MP, Secretary of State for International Development told More 4 News he was very concerned to hear the news.

"We were aware there had been attacks in Gereida in February but these are the first reports that I have heard that there may have been attacks from the air."

Watch the report here