Reader Mike A sends this link. I think the headline pretty much says where this one is going: "How the rich ignored Niger crisis"

DAKAR, Senegal (Reuters) -- The costs of saving millions of people starving in Niger are rocketing because [evil]rich nations ignored calls for early intervention to avert the ravages of last year's drought, relief workers said on Wednesday. [...]

In common with many other crises in Africa, U.N. officials say the late response in Niger shows how the [evil] rich world often misses chances to avoid worse disasters by reacting only when situations reach critical, headline-grabbing proportions.

In Niger's case, failed rains and locusts [sent over there by Karl Rove, no doubt] left some 3.6 million people short of food last year, putting tens of thousands of children at risk of starving to death...

Jan Egeland, head of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said on Tuesday it would have cost $1 a day to prevent malnutrition among children if the world had responded immediately. Now it costs some $80 to save a malnourished child's life, he said.

Perhaps foreign aid dropped because a certain U.N. undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs (named Jan) called us stingy.