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Tel Aviv, Israel Felice Friedson / The Med – It all happens in the hallways. More than a thousand start-up entrepreneurs and investors were in Tel Aviv in the business equivalent of speed dating – matching up capital with young companies developing innovative new products and services, sometimes in a matter of minutes.

The entrepreneurs-mostly Israelis-pitched their ideas in brief presentations to so-called angel investors, wealthy people ready to risk capital on a product just coming onto the market or not even off the drawing boards. In a few precious minutes one start-up makes its investment case and gets an offer from an American to kick in $15,000.

The Israel Dealmakers Summit, sponsored by the New York-based strategic and financial advisory firm Landmark Ventures, met to bring together investors with promising new technology ventures produced by the fertile minds of Israelis, who have been behind groundbreaking innovations in medical devices, biotechnology, Internet and wireless.

More than 125 foreign executives and investors came from over 20 countries. Many were in Israel for the first time.

“This conference is designed to be a deal-making summit,” Zeev Klein, Landmark’s general partner, told The Media Line. “The goal is to bring international corporations and investors to Israel, many of them coming for the first time, to really learn about the innovation here. This is actually our fourth year in Israel.”

Why travel thousands of miles to Israel when Silicon Valley is so close?

Investors and entrepreneurs say it is because Israel is the No. 2 place in the world as a generator of innovation. National expenditure for research and development is 4.9 percent of gross domestic product, the world’s highest rate. The country ranks second in the world for the amount of venture capital (VC) invested in start-up companies. Last year, venture capital funds, the traditional source of finance for new companies, invested more than $2.1 billion in technology start-ups.

“In many ways it is as a country what Silicon Valley is to the region,” Saul Klein, a partner at Index Ventures, told The Media Line.

“It really has the full breadth and diversity of every single tech sector to invest in, so Internet, software, mobile telecom, security on the tech side and life sciences, medical devices, clean tech. There is a huge diversity of opportunities,” he says. “We have probably invested in 20 companies in Israel over the 10 to 15 years.”

Start-ups are the lifeblood of Israel’s economy. That why Israel’s finance minister, Yuval Steinitz, told the conference he was counting on angel investors and others to keep investing to help maintain Israel’s 5 percent annual growth rate.

Some of the companies making pitches to investors came from abroad, like Canatu from Finland, which is developing a waterproof cellular phone. Others are Israelis, like On the Mob, which creates market strategies for mobile-applications developers.

“We advise on the user experience of the app, how to generate income from the app, if it’s on-line, purchasing the app itself to remove ads,” Barak Schneider, business developer for On the Mob, told The Media Line.

Top executives came representing some of the world’s biggest companies, such as General Motors, General Electric and Cisco. Jeffrey Swartz, former chief executive officer of Timberland, the U.S. maker of iconic hiking boots and outdoor wear, has some advice for young entrepreneurs.

“I think actually every young entrepreneur knows the answer to the question — they just don’t know the question. And I think that if young entrepreneurs would just spend a little bit of time — a little bit of time — to ask themselves not what am I trying to do, what market am I trying to serve, but what is my purpose? It’s a question of identity, personal, but it’s also a question of identity corporately,” he told The Media Line.

Israel has pioneered some of the most widely used technology, from the disk on key, instant messaging and Internet firewalls.

“It’s a great success in establishing connection between innovative thinkers in Israel, innovative doers in Israel and finders,” Swartz says.

The impression is that entrepreneurs are younger and younger these days. But Zeev Klein says Israelis are getting more experience.

“In terms of the youth of the entrepreneurs, we’re seeing a lot of these [are] second and third generation. Early in Israel, you were seeing these first time out, really kids and, like many of us, they had to learn their ropes a little bit. So you’re seeing now more seasoned entrepreneurs and the major impact of these seasoned entrepreneurs is that they’re more globally sophisticated,” Swartz says. “They’re capable of walking into GE’s office or Sony’s office and actually pitching them about making an investment.”

And what are investors looking for?

“We’re looking at a lot of interesting new things in augmented reality,” says David J. Blumberg, managing partner of San Francisco-based Blumberg Capital. “Augmented reality is bringing the physical world of the sea view in front of us and giving the virtual world to enhance it, to augment it.”

A typical application, he envisions, is one where the user aims his or her cellphone at a street and it shows you where the nearest drugstore or café is located. “It’s bringing data from the web, from the virtual world, to bear into the physical world. And you can see the application in games when you can have a virtual opponent to play a game with you. And you can have a virtual obstacle course that you have to jump and run and play through and a number of companies work in that field. It came a lot from the military so Israel has again an advantage,” he says.

Niall Maloney, vice president for strategic alliances and licensing at the U.S. publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, flew over from his office in Dublin looking for new technology to augment the company’s line of elementary and high school textbooks.

“As a global-leading publishing house, our next 3-5 years will see a dramatic shift in the way our content is delivered. Kids expectations are digital. Israel has exciting and innovative companies,” Maloney says.

At last year’s conference Maloney closed a global licensing program with Ginger Software, an Israeli company whose software is like a spellchecker on steroids. Using proprietary algorithms, Ginger corrects major spelling and grammatical errors and revises them into natural English, a boon for people whose first language isn’t English.

“This year we are looking at several options, including a company with printing technology for small print runs in local markets as well as a revolutionary digital platform for trade shows and marketing events called BlueStone.”

Avigdor Sapir, BlueStone’s founder, began this start-up a year ago and in October reached an agreement with a leading German trade show company, Hamburg Messe und Congress GmbH, to offer his platform to the trade.

“People give out brochures of their companies or e-mail them and most of the company representatives end up throwing them away. This technology enables the customer to show off their brochures on a smartphone and select which documents they are interested in and by pressing ‘sent,’ they are delivered to a spatial site which BlueStone builds for them.”

And what were the words of advice the funders had for the Israelis? Saul Klein has a simple one: “Raise just enough money so that you can get to your next major milestone.”

Jeff Pulver, an American angel investor who has put money into scores of Israeli start-ups and known as a pioneer in Internet telephony, describes what he looks for when he invests.

“I like to believe that we don’t know the next best thing but when I invest in start-ups, I look for the ruach [spirit] of the person,” he says. “I look for their soul. I look in their eyes and see their passion. I need to believe that this is going to be something terrific. If so and I have the chance to invest, I will. Because at the end of the day, I invest in people, not companies.”

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Washington, DC, United States (AHN) – Gas prices hit shockingly all-time highs for the month of February and the prices continue to be over $3.60 on average per gallon and the price climb doesn’t seem to have any end in sight. At the time of this writing, the national average is sitting at $3.65 a gallon.

When the price of gas climbs, so does the cost of everything else. All the companies that deliver groceries have to pay more so they increase the price of those groceries. The cost of oil directly impacts the cost of electricity, which in turn affects just about every aspect of our lives. Luckily, when it comes to combating the price of gas there are a few fuel saving tips you can use to save money on gas.

Try to Maintain Your Speed

For some of us, we get a little jumpy with our driving. What we didn’t know about this constant speed-up-just-to-slow-down is that we are lowering the fuel efficiency in our vehicles. According to the United States Department of Energy, quickly starting and stopping can reduce the efficiency of your car by as much as 33 percent. To get better mileage out of your car, try easing up on the gas and brake pedal.

Inflate Your Tires to the Proper Poundage

According to a study by the United States Department of Energy, a staggering 83 percent of cars in the United States do not have all of their tires inflated properly. The DOE states that having the proper poundage in all of your tires can boost your vehicle’s fuel economy by 33 percent.

Tires should be checked for air pressure every two weeks for optimum regulation—for those of us too busy, it should be done once per month at a minimum. Checking your pressure should be done only when the tires are cold so avoid checking the pressure if you’ve just driven your car.

Speeding Isn’t Just Illegal, It Wastes Money

A different study by the Energy Department found that not only is maintaining the speed limit safer than speeding, it can also save your vehicle a lot of money.

In the study, DOE found that every five miles per hour that your vehicle speeds over 60 mph is equal to spending an extra quarter at the gas tank. So instead of that gas being $3.65 now, it would cost over $4 per gallon if you are driving 70 mph instead of 60.

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Amman, Jordan David Rosenberg / The Med – The approximately €3 billion ($4 billion) in aid to Jordan promised by Catherine Ashton, the European Union foreign affairs chief, over the next three years couldn’t come at a better time for the kingdom, whose political turbulence is being compounded by a sagging economy.

But it is also an investment for the West in an ally whose role is growing increasingly important as the Arab Spring and other regional developments loosen ties with other partners like Egypt and Iraq. Jordan and its economy are tiny, but it stands at strategic crossroads between Israel, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia and its ruler, King Abdallah II, is reliably pro-Western.

“Given that there is so much volatility in the region, you don’t want to add another element to it. Extending the aid package is certainly transmitting a signal of stability there and not allowing things to deteriorate,” Christian Koch, director of the international studies research program at the Gulf Research Center, told The Media Line.

Abdallah’s reign doesn’t face any immediate threat, but protests inspired by the Arab Spring calling for an end to corruption and greater democracy have erupted over the past year and demands have grown more militant. The king’s ability to cool tensions with more government handouts is severely constrained by a sagging economy.

Unrest in Syria has cut the country off from a major trade partner while supplies of natural gas from Egypt have been cut by repeated attacks on the pipeline, raising food and fuel prices. Last year, tourism receipts dropped 16 percent, while remittances from Jordanians working abroad fell 3 percent and foreign direct investment declined by almost a third, according to the World Bank.

Jordanian gross domestic product will grow just 1.7 percent this year, less than a third its average over the past decade. It faces a gaping current account and budget deficits that will have to be financed externally.

Ashton unveiled the wide-ranging aid package Wednesday at a news conference on the shores of the Dead Sea with Jordanian Prime Minister Awn Khasawneh. The biggest component is €1.2 billion of assistance from EU member states, but it also includes nearly €300 million of direct EU aid, up €70 million previous.

She said the EU and Jordan agreed to start negotiations on a “deep and comprehensive” free trade agreement in the coming weeks.

The largesse doesn’t end there. The EU-controlled European Investment Bank plans to more than double its lending to Jordan to as much as €400 million in the next two years. Another EU institution, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), will begin working in Jordan with the aim of scaling up to activities of as much as €300 million annually.

Meanwhile, the World Bank is offering financial support of around €460 million for the government and another €250 million for local businesses over the next three years.

The U.S. has also pledged to step up assistance. It provided some $840 million to the kingdom last year and when Abdallah visited Washington last month U.S. President Barack Obama promised hundreds of millions of dollars would be allocated to help Jordan.

Saudi Arabia, a fellow kingdom that has emerged as a leading force in preserving the Middle East’s status quo, gave Jordan some $1.4 billion in assistance last year and invited it to join the Gulf Cooperation Council, which could ease the way to more aid and economic ties.

Western leaders are meanwhile exploring debt relief for Jordan and other friendly countries feeling the pinch of the Arab Spring on their economies. EU and governmental sources told Agence France-Presse on Thursday that European governments are weighing a radical plan for Middle Eastern countries, including Algeria, Egypt, Gaza and the West Bank, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Syria and Tunisia.

Jordan has an external debt of $18 billion, equal to more than 65 percent of gross domestic product. The World Bank estimates repayments could eat up 4 percent of GDP this year.

But, in contrast to the traditional way of shoring up strategically important regimes with military aid or aid paid to the government, the Western powers are emphasizing the role of their cash in promoting economic and political reform. Stung by the failure of aid to keep friendly leaders like Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak in power and the difficulty of keeping revolutions on the road to stability and prosperity, Western leaders are now looking for ways to finesse gradual change under veteran leaders.

“There’s this realization that the political transition process we are witnessing will not be easy. We will not simply move from the overthrow of a government to a stable political situation; there is a long-term process involved that will be quite messy,” said Koch.

At the same time, the U.S. and Europe have to be careful that pushing too hard for reform doesn’t backfire. In Egypt, U.S. and European human rights activists are facing criminal charges for interfering in domestic politics while polls show the majority of Egyptians oppose American aid.

Ashton’s remarks on Wednesday reflected the delicate balance the U.S. and Europe are trying to achieve.

“We are fully committed to accompanying this country on its journey towards an inclusive and democratic society of social justice and economic prosperity,” she said. “But I say to you: this is your country, these are your reforms. The job of the European Union… is to help and support.”

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Yangon, Myanmar (IRIN) – Lack of access to anti-retroviral therapy (ARV) to treat HIV has left thousands of patients in Myanmar with deteriorating immunity and increased vulnerability to tuberculosis (TB), say health workers.

“The situation is dire,” said Peter Paul de Groote, head of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in Myanmar. “The gap between the treatment that is needed and what is received is unacceptably high.”

ARV providers in Myanmar – of whom MSF is the largest – are concentrated in Yangon and Mandalay divisions, and Shan and Kachin states, which account for more than 60 percent of the country’s 133 ART distribution sites, according to UNAIDS Myanmar.

“The unfortunate case is that many people have to travel far to access treatment. This country has the potential to treat more people, save more lives and prevent transmission by expanding service provision,” Sung Gang, the UNAIDS Myanmar country coordinator, told IRIN from Yangon.

But according to MSF, funding is the biggest problem.

When donors did not deliver on pledges, the Global Fund to Fight HIV, Tuberculosis and Malaria canceled its Round 11 funding in late November.

While a Transitional Funding Mechanism has been established to provide emergency relief to current recipients, which will run out of money before 2014, it only covers essential services such as HIV treatment, care and prevention, leaving ARV providers unable to expand to other needed areas, notes MSF.

Scale-up interrupted

Funds from Round 11 were expected to treat 46,500 more patients in Myanmar, according to a recent MSF study .

Of the estimated 240,000 HIV-positive people, only 24 percent receive ARV therapy. Roughly 85,000 people need treatment but cannot access it, causing up to 20,000 preventable AIDS-related deaths annually, according to MSF.

“The Ministry of Health, MSF, and the hospitals all have the willingness and capacity to scale up. There are a lot of new donor pledges [going into Myanmar] but not for HIV,” MSF’s De Groote said.

Doctors are forced to prioritize treatment for patients in the most advanced stages of HIV/AIDS, despite proof that earlier treatment decreases transmission rates and improves health outcomes, according to the Inter-Agency Standing Committee’s (IASC) 2010 Guidelines for addressing HIV in humanitarian settings .

“Turning back patients is a difficult and impossible choice. We have to tell them, come back when you get sicker,” said Khin Nyein Chan, MSF’s deputy medical coordinator in Myanmar and a doctor at the NGO’s clinic in Yangon, one of four nationwide.

While the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends starting ARV medications when an HIV patient’s CD4 count, a specialized immune system cell measure, has dropped below 350 cells/mm3 , doctors in Myanmar administer ARVs only to those with CD4 levels below 150 cells/mm3.

“They have to wait until severe life-threatening and opportunistic infections are in their bodies before we can treat them,” said Khin Nyein Chan.

TB threat

TB is one such opportunistic infection. An HIV-positive status can increase the chance of contracting TB by up to 37-fold, according to WHO .

In Myanmar, 300,000 people are infected with TB – 60,000 of whom are also HIV-positive – according to MSF.

The increased incidence of airborne TB among HIV patients not taking ARVs raises the likelihood that it will spread among the general population, said Maria Guavara, MSF’s medical coordinator.

“HIV/AIDS and TB are a lethal combination. Treatment of HIV drops the instance rate of TB.”

At Phoenix Association, a Yangon-based social support center for HIV-positive people, patients seek solace from debt and disease.

One patient from Phyuu Township of Bago Division in the country’s south, Sai Hlaw Aung, 33, told IRIN in 2011 that battling HIV and TB had made him too weak to continue working as a bamboo cutter.

“Now I am not as strong as before. I have no idea how I could earn household income when I go back home,” said Sai Hlaw Aung.

The association allows out-of-town patients to sleep in the office while undergoing treatment in Yangon. Space is tight.

“Currently we need shelter to accommodate the people,” said Thiha Kyaing, head of the association told IRIN. Little has changed since.

“We don’t just want to bridge the treatment gap and walk away. We need sustainable programs, and the sooner the better,” De Groote said. “If we don’t treat people now we will lose them,” he added.

dm/pt/mw

– Provided by Integrated Regional Information Networks.

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Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – The White House on Friday reiterated earlier arguments from President Barack Obama that increased demand in China and India have caused skyrocketing gas prices at U.S. pumps.

“The price of gas, the spike in the price of gas is related to the spike in the global oil market. The impact of the global oil market is significantly outside the ability of anybody inside the United States to influence prices at that level,” said Josh Earnest, White House principal deputy secretary.

Speaking at the University of Miami on Thursday,Obama said, “Over the long term, the biggest reason oil prices will probably keep going up is growing demand in countries like China and India and Brazil.”

“And as folks in China and India and Brazil, they aspire to buy a car just like Americans do, those numbers are only going to get bigger,” he said.

Echoing the president’s sentiments, Earnest told journalists on Friday, “We’re seeing a booming economy in India, where there is an increasing demand for oil in India — that’s affecting the price of oil in the global oil market.” He added, “We’re seeing a stronger economy in Brazil, where the demand for oil and gas in Brazil has significantly increased — that’s affecting the global oil market.”

“So the global oil market is influenced by the fact that in China, 10 million new cars were added to the roads in China in 2010. That has added to the demand in the global oil market,” he said.

Asked what the administration was doing to alleviate the hardships of the common American, Earnest cited the presidential policy to take “advantage of domestic oil and gas production in this country.”

“It means important investments in renewable energy, like wind and solar and biofuels. It means the President’s success in negotiating a historic fuel-efficiency standards rule that would raise fuel-efficiency standards in this country — that would ensure that we are essentially doubling fuel-efficiency standards for cars and trucks,” said Earnest.

Citing all possible options as “difficult policy challenges,” he said, “Anybody who says that there’s an easy answer to doing something about it right away is just not telling the truth.”

With Republican presidential candidates trying to outdo each other in blasting Obama’s energy policy in recent days, and offering populist plans, the president said they are trying to exploit the spike in gas prices for political purposes.

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New York, NY, United States (AHN) – U.S. stocks opened modestly higher Friday as traders bet the end of the work week will see the Dow close over 13,000.

Upbeat economic data Thursday helped the Standard & Poors 500 Index end near a 10-month high, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average ended the day up 46.02 to 12,984.69, a new 52-week high. It was the highest close since May 19, 2008, and just a few points below the psychologically important 13,000 mark.

Just after the opening bell on Friday, the Dow gained 4 points, the S&P was up 2 points and the NASDAQ rose 3 points.

Economic focus will remain key on Friday as reports on consumer sentiment and new homes sales are due mid-morning.

Market participants were also keeping a close eye on oil, which has risen sharply over the past week on worries of export cutbacks and embargoes from Iran.

Crude oil for April delivery rose 45 cents, or 0.4 percent, to $108.26 a barrel. Oil gushed higher by $1.55 a barrel on Thursday amid concerns that Iran could stop sending some oil to European nations.

Gold, which has had a stellar run over the past several trading sessions, shed $5.80 to $1,780.50 a troy ounce, and silver, which has been on a tear, was last quoted up 7 cents to $35.43.

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NYC, NY, United States (AHN) – Campbell Soups is thinking outside of the can. Soon you will able to pour a pouch of soup as well as dig into its flagship soups from the company’s iconic cans.

The legendary soup company announced Wednesday that it plans to put soups in new packages, such as pouches, in an effort to grow and expand its business.

The company also revealed plans to expand it bellwether brand into the simple meals category with a line of “Skillet Sauces” that can be added to cooked poultry of beef.

The products are among some 50 new items Campbell’s plans to debut during its next fiscal year.

Also planned are soups with bolder flavors and more zing. New offerings include Thai coconut and tomato roasted garlic bacon.

Campbell’s is not doing away with soups in cans, it is simply expanding its packaging offerings.

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New York, NY, United States (AHN) – Precious metals continued to move higher Wednesday following Tuesday’s Greek debt deal in which euro zone finance ministers approved a second bailout for the ailing Mediterranean country.

While the deal isn’t expected to solve Europe’s debt problems, investors were able to sigh in relief that a messy and chaotic debt default will not disrupts markets–for the time being, anyway.

Gold ended higher by $32.60 Tuesday, settling at $1757.10 a troy ounce. The white metals, platinum and palladium also enjoyed strong gain. Silver, the gray metal, finished the day sharply higher.

The upward momentum in the commodities spilled over into Wednesday.

Comex April gold futures staged a late day move to finish the U.S. trading session on Wednesday at a fresh three month high. April gold last traded up $13.30 at $1771.80. Spot gold was last changing hands up $9.70 at $1,770.50.

Platinum jumped $39 to $1,721, palladium rose $12.30 to $719 and silver eked out a nickel gain to $34.34.

Investors plunged into gold as a safe-haven buy following rising tensions in the Persian Gulf following the recent news Iran halted oil shipments to some European countries. The other metals, used in the industrial production of a variety of goods and services, continued their ascent on renewed hopes that a global economic slowdown is not on the near horizon.

Profit taking may ease some of the recent gains, but precious metal bugs see the upward trend continuing.

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Brazzaville, Dr Congo (IRIN) – Health authorities in the Republic of Congo have recorded 340 cases of cholera, nine of them fatal, since June 2011, in the northern district of Likouala, and have warned that the disease continues to spread and that some health centers lack sufficient treatment.

“Some deaths have not been taken into account because the [deceased's] families have not reported them,” said Jean Martin Mabiala, the doctor in charge of health services in the district, adding that there were other suspected cases that had not been confirmed because of the remoteness of their locations.

He said the crew of a river boat from the Central African Republic had buried two people suspected to have died of cholera in early February.

The epidemic has struck a 500-kilometer radius area stretching from Betou to Liranga, which includes the department’s main town, Impofondo.

“We have received some medical supplies from Brazzaville but the cholera patients use so much we have almost run out,” said Mabiala.

“There is a lot to be done to raise awareness and disinfect houses,” he added.

Meanwhile, in Brazzaville, 200 cases of measles, including two fatalities, have been recorded over the past two weeks, according to the director-general in the health ministry, Alexis Elira Dokekias, who explained that not all children had been vaccinated against the disease.

Between December 2010 and June 2011, 800 cases of measles, including 32 fatalities, were recorded in the southern Pointe-Noire region, leading to a stepped-up immunization campaign.

lmm/am/mw

– Provided by Integrated Regional Information Networks.

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Damascus, Syria David Rosenberg / The Med – Syria’s turmoil is showing signs of reaching the country’s kitchens as disruptions in transportation and trade sanctions are conspiring to shrink supplies and boost prices at a time when harvests are constrained by poor weather.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has increased its estimate for Syria’s harvests slightly since it last officially published figures in October. But, Mario Zappacosta, economist at the FAO’s Global Information Early-Warning Systems (GIEWS), said the higher figure is unlikely to be enough to prevent a food crisis.

GIEWS now estimates the Syrian production of wheat and barley in the harvest that ended last August at about 4.2 million tons, which is up from slightly less than 4 million tons in its previous estimate. But that still leaves it below the average crop size of the previous five years. Worse still, getting the food to consumers is more difficult than ever as unrest snarls transportation and sanctions have raised the cost of fuel.

“We categorize it as a problem of access. Especially in urban areas that are affected by the security situation, it is very difficult to supply shops in the market. We can imagine a situation where there [farm] products are harvested and stored, but markets aren’t functioning,” Zappacosta told The Media Line.

Cereal crops provide the most important part of the Syrian diet and are the only ones monitored by GEIWS. But other foods, like fruits and vegetables, are even more likely to suffer from the transportation problem because they have such a short shelf life and cannot be stored for as long.

A food crisis would pose a significant challenge to the beleaguered regime of President Bashar Al-Assad, who is coping with international diplomatic and trade isolation, a contracting economy and an opposition more ready than in the past to use arms. The president has struggled to keep the economy afloat and Syrians content, raising deposit rates to support the currency and maintaining subsidies of basic goods at great cost to the treasury.

“All this is an indication to the business community that the Syrian government is floundering on how to cope with economic deterioration,” Ayesha Sabavala, an analyst who follows Syria for the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), told The Media Line. “A rapid decline in economy could also cause the army or people in the government to abandon support of Al-Assad. They might see support for him comes at too heavy a price.”

Some analysts say that the disruptions wrought by misguided farm policies and drought were a key factor in pushing Syrians into rebellion. The drought, which struck much of northern and eastern Syria after 2006, forced tens of thousands of farm families to migrate to camps on the outskirts of Syria’s cities in search of work.

The unrest, now in its 11th month, makes it difficult for aid workers and experts to fully assess the situation. GEIWS uses satellite images and uses estimates to arrive at its numbers for output and consumption, but like other organizations it has very little information about conditions inside the country.

Nevertheless, in its latest assessment of global food security, released Feb. 10, the U.N. World Food Program (WFP) put the number of people defined as “food insecure” at 1.4 million since March 2011, when the uprising began. Food insecurity is the most severe in “hotspots” like Homs, Hama, rural Damascus, Dera’a and Idlib, the WFP said.

The official Syrian SANA news agency said two weeks ago that the direct damage to the farm sector caused by what it called “armed terrorist groups” had reached 450 million Syrian pounds ($7.8 million). The General Organization for Consumer Products reported that food worth 250 million pounds ($4.3 million) was stolen from its warehouses in the Homs neighborhood of Baba Amr.

If it happens, crunch time for Al-Assad is likely to occur this spring. That is about the time that the 2011 harvest will have been depleted even if the entire crop reaches Syrian consumers, according to GIEWS estimates.

“In general, the country is not self-sufficient. Domestic production is enough for the first eight months after the harvest [in August] and imports start to take its place in May and June,” Zappacosta said.

GIEWS estimates the country will need to import about four million tons of cereals during the current marketing year, which is down from the 4.6 million tons it estimated in October. But Damascus will have trouble meeting even the smaller shortfall because of trade sanctions.

The European Union’s ban on Syrian oil imports, imposed last September, doesn’t include food. But analysts say it has strained the country’s finances and made traders wary about doing business with it. European traders told The Wall Street Journal last month that a risk premium of around $10 a metric ton was being imposed on all wheat supplied to Syria through the private sector.

Meanwhile, the pound has plunged more than 50 percent so that a dollar is now worth about 58 pounds on the official market and 71 pounds on the black market. Most of the depreciation occurred in the final two months of 2011.

All that has made it more expensive to buy food abroad. But the cost of trucking local produce to market and even the cost of growing it have both climbed. Syrian farmers are highly reliant on irrigation, but the pumps rely on every more costly fuel.

Even where there is food, sticker shock is the new norm for the urban consumer. Since the unrest broke out, the price of a 25-liter (6.6 gallon) bottle of cooking gas in Damascus has risen to anywhere between $8.70 and $14 from $4.30, according to IRIN, the news service of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. A tray of 30 eggs has increased to between $5.20 and $6.90 from $3.10; and a kilo of potatoes to between $1 and $1.30 from 35 cents.

Syrian inflation is likely to touch 12% this year according to the EIU.

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