No breakfast for children because of aid cuts

[Omaha Steve]

Source: Associated Press

By KER MUNTHIT and MICHAEL CASEY

KAMPONG SPEU, Cambodia (AP) - At dawn in a ramshackle elementary school in rural Cambodia, the children think of only one thing: their stomachs. They anxiously await the steaming buckets of free rice delivered to their desks.

But by the end of the month, they will no longer get free breakfast from the U.N. World Food Program. About 450,000 Cambodian students will become the latest victims of soaring global food prices.

Five local suppliers have defaulted on contracts to provide rice because they can get a higher price elsewhere, program officials say. Prices of rice have tripled on the global market since December.

Faced with a shortfall of more than 14,000 tons of rice, and with more pressing needs to meet, the World Food Program stopped the free breakfasts in March. The schools' remaining stocks are expected to run out in the coming days.

Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20080526/D90TJ6M81.html