Food prices stir poverty concern

The price of coarse rice, the staple food of poor Bangladeshis, has more than doubled in a year [EP The International Monetary Fund has said that rising food prices threaten to undermine gains made in cutting poverty and further strain a global economy already hit by a financial crisis. The warning comes after riots related to increasing food prices rocked Haiti and Egypt. The increases are caused, in part, by drought in Australia and in central Europe, and more demand for food in increasingly Asian countries, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, IMF managing director, said on Thursday. Strauss-Kahn's comments came on the eve of a meeting of finance ministers and central bank chiefs of the Group of Seven industrial countries in Washington DC.