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UNITED NATIONS (AP) - A U.N. rights advocate said Thursday that millions more of the world's poor suffered malnutrition last year, charging that the trade practices of wealthy nations and desert encroachment aggravated the problem.
Jean Ziegler, a U.N. expert on food rights, said that some 852 million people were "gravely, permanently undernourished on this planet" at the end of 2005, an increase of 11 million from the year earlier.
Much of that increase came in Africa, where drought, climate change and poor farming practices are spreading the Sahara Desert further southward into once-fertile lands, Ziegler told a news conference.
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