Comment by tenpies | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tenpies | Hacker News Reader

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> ’m asking if a famine will be a down stream result of this catastrophe.

There was already a secular trend of Pakistan having to import ever-larger amounts of food[1].

Unfortunately the minute Putin invaded Ukraine, we saw one of the world's breadbaskets invade another of the world's breadbaskets and the West lost its mind with sanctions. The EU's reaction is "we'll do whatever it takes" which is a nice way of saying "we'll out-bid everyone else for food and energy". From that moment, most of Africa and many Asian countries were condemned by the West to face famines - just so Europe wouldn't face the total consequences of its own sanctions. Pakistan is one of the countries that will be out-bid by the EU.

Pakistan was already expected to raise imports before this flood[2]. I cannot imagine how bad it's going to be now that they have the confluence of terrible flooding and, Putin and the EU exporting famine to much of the world.

Everyone that can should consider donating to Pakistani aid.

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[1] https://www.dawn.com/news/1630378

[2] https://www.world-grain.com/articles/17140-pakistan-expected...

Fuck Russia, but Pakistan does not have sanctions on it. And the EU won't do anything to them if they keep importing from Russia.

Perhaps use "US" instead of "EU", it works better on the morons believing Russian garbage.

The poorer countries of the world have taken a "Well... we have nothing to say" stance about the invasion because that's the issue: they're poor. What if they pick the losing side and get punished to hunger and economic freezing-out by the winner(s)? Geopolitically, they were probably not sure if China was going to throw its weight behind Putin - imagine what China would be doing/saying if Putin successfully occupied Ukraine and controlled its food output - sure today we can say "That was never going to happen", but at the end of February, many governments of the world didn't know that.

In any case, do you think if Pakistan said "We join the EU/US in sanctioning Russia", they'd be getting extra help from the EU/US at the moment? I like the EU but they seem to have been running around in internal panic themselves, they're not going to give a crap about Pakistan...

> but Pakistan does not have sanctions on it. And the EU won't do anything to them if they keep importing from Russia.

Exactly. Russia is a pariah state for the EU, but the EU does not treat states trading with it as pariah states.

you argument lacks logic. Pakistan is not EU and can easily import food from russia, just like India is buying russian oil at a great discounts.

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