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 NIAMEY, Niger (AP) - Niger's president played down the food crisis ravaging his desert nation, insisting Tuesday that people in the impoverished West African country "look well-fed."
In an interview with the British Broadcasting Corp., President Mamadou Tandja acknowledged that a devastating locust invasion last year and poor rains have produced food shortages. But he said that was not unusual for his country — or for the entire Sahel region, a semi-desert scrubland that straddles the southern edge of the Sahara desert.
"We are experiencing like all the countries in the Sahel a food crisis due to the poor harvest and the locust attacks of 2004," Tandja told the BBC.
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