World Feeding Itself Spurs Search Amid Global Feast and Famine
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As the Tunisian dictator Zine el Abidine Ben Ali discovered in January, there is no surer route to political oblivion than to deny people access to affordable food.
On Dec. 17, after Tunisian police assaulted a street vendor named Mohamed Bouazizi and seized his produce cart because, according to his family, he couldn’t afford to pay bribes, the 26-year-old Bouazizi doused himself with accelerant and lit a match. He died two weeks later. The riots that ensued -- propelled in part by anger over high food prices -- drove Ben Ali from power and spread to Egypt, Jordan, Yemen and Algeria. Ben Ali may be remembered as the despot who was toppled by a vegetable cart, Bloomberg Businessweek reports in its Feb. 21 issue.