World Tour: The global food crisis

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: WORLD Tour with our reporter in Africa, Onize Ohikere.

U.S. Ghana visit— We kick off this week’s roundup in Ghana, where the United States ambassador to the United Nations addressed the global food crisis.

AUDIO: WELCOME MUSIC

Linda Thomas-Greenfield’s three-nation tour included stops in Uganda and Cape Verde. During her address at the University of Ghana, Thomas-Greenfield said many nations are battling a complex mix of crises.

THOMAS-GREENFIELD: Russia's war in Ukraine only makes an already horrific food crisis even more dire. And all of these problems; energy, climate, COVID and conflict combine into a complex cocktail that has led to the worst hunger crisis in our lifetimes.

She said she was not trying to pressure African leaders to pick a side in the Russian war in Ukraine. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov visited four African countries including Uganda and Ethiopia, a week earlier.

THOMAS-GREENFIELD: Africans have the right to decide their foreign policy positions free of pressure and manipulation, free of threats. But let me be clear, I'm not here to tell you or any Africans what to think, but I do want to present the facts.

This week U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is visiting South Africa, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Rwanda.

Colombia Inauguration— Next, to Colombia.

AUDIO: [CROWD CHEERING]

Hundreds of thousands of Colombians gathered in the Plaza de Bolivar in the capital city of Bogota [Bow-ga-tah] on Sunday to witness the swearing-in of Gustavo Petro as president.

Petro is the nation’s first-ever leftist president. His victory in June elections put an end to decades of conservative rule.

AUDIO: [PETRO OATH OF OFFICE]

The 62-year-old is a former guerrilla and one-time mayor. He pledged to work on an amnesty deal for armed groups, invest in healthcare and education, and reform the police after a violent crackdown on anti-inequality protests last year.

Iceland volcano— We head over to southwest Iceland, where a volcano has started erupting.

AUDIO: [LAVA FLOWING]

Red lava gushed out of a fissure in a valley near Mount Fagradalsfjall, 20 miles southwest of the capital.

The Icelandic Meteorological Office has warned that noxious gasses from the volcano threaten a village of 1,000 residents some three miles from the valley. The pollution could spread to the capital.

The field of lava from the eruption covered more than 144,000 square meters. It comes just eight months after the volcano’s last eruption formally ended.

Italy protests— We conclude today with protests in Italy that followed the murder of a disabled Nigerian man.

AUDIO: [PROTESTORS CHANTING]

A widely circulated video showed Alika Ogorchukwu strangled to death two weeks ago as people looked on and recorded the incident. Police detained a 32-year-old Italian suspect known to have psychiatric problems. They ruled out any racial motivation, sparking further outrage.

Police said the suspect struck Ogorchukwu with his walking crutch, but it’s unclear what first sparked the altercation.

Ogorchukwu’s tearful widow led one of the marches in the Adriatic beach town on Saturday. Black Italians led a second march along the same route later in the day, demanding authorities recognize the role of race in the murder.

Desmond Okudaye joined the Saturday protests.

OKUDAYE: Italians see us like animals, see us like, we are black, we are animals, and then this. Imagine what would happen in a time like you are fighting, two people fighting, you can see the video camera looking at them, nobody separated them.

City officials are concerned the killing will further fuel tensions over immigration and racism ahead of parliamentary elections next month.

That’s it for this week’s World Tour. Reporting for WORLD, I’m Onize Ohikere in Abuja, Nigeria.

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.