David Beasley
A young boy looks up as displaced Tigrayans line up to receive food donated by local residents at a reception center for the internally displaced in Mekele, in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia, on Sunday, May 9, 2021. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)
Report on Tigray: 350,000 face famine, 2 million a step away

By Edith M. Lederer Jun. 10, 2021 05:41 PM EDT

FILE - In this April 10, 2021 file photo, a man waits to unload bags of basic food staples, such as pasta, sugar, flour, and kitchen oil, provided residents through the CLAP government food assistance program in the Santa Rosalia neighborhood of Caracas, Venezuela. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro signed a deal the week of April 23, 2021 to let the U.N. World Food Program create a program to provide school meals for 1.5 million children, after years of rejecting humanitarian aid offers as unnecessary and as veiled attempts by the U.S. and other hostile forces to destabilize his government. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix, File)
Venezuela's Maduro begins allowing aid against hunger, virus

By Regina Garcia Cano And Jorge Rueda Apr. 23, 2021 04:19 PM EDT

FILE - In this April 7, 2021, file photo, people attend the burial of a relative who died from complications related to COVID-19 at the Vila Formosa cemetery in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Nations around the world set new records Thursday, April 8, for COVID-19 deaths and new coronavirus infections, and the disease surged even in some countries that have kept the virus in check. Brazil became just the second country, after the U.S., to report a 24-hour tally of COVID-19 deaths exceeding 4,000. (AP Photo/Andre Penner, File)
UN chief urges wealth tax of those who profited during COVID

By Edith M. Lederer Apr. 12, 2021 04:48 PM EDT

FILE - In this Saturday, June 27, 2020 file photo, trainees parade with the wooden mock guns which they use to train with, during the visit of the defense minister to a military training center in Owiny Ki-Bul, Eastern Equatoria, South Sudan. The scale of violence in South Sudan is "a lot worse" than during the country's five-year civil war, a United Nations commission announced Friday, Feb. 19, 2021, accusing senior officials of supporting armed groups that at times have included tens of thousands of fighters. (AP Photo/Maura Ajak, File)
UN mandates South Sudan force to prevent return to civil war

By Edith M. Lederer Mar. 12, 2021 11:42 PM EST

In this image made from UNTV video, United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres speaks during a U.N. Security Council high-level meeting on COVID-19 recovery focusing on vaccinations, chaired by British Foreign Secretary Dominc Raab, Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2021, at UN headquarters, in New York. (UNTV via AP)
UN appeals for $5.5 billion to avert famine for 34 million

By Edith M. Lederer Mar. 11, 2021 11:55 AM EST

FILE - In this Oct. 9, 2020 file photo, World Food Program (WFP) Executive Director David Beasley speaks to journalists about the organization's Nobel Peace Prize win, at the airport in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. After a visit to Yemen Beasly warned that his underfunded organization may be forced seek hundreds of millions of dollars in private donations in a desperate bid to stave off widespread famine in the coming months. Beasley told The Associated Press in an interview Wednesday March 10, 2021, that conditions in war-wrecked Yemen are “hell.” (AP Photo/Sam Mednick, File)
'This is hell': UN food aid chief visits Yemen, fears famine

By Maggie Hyde Mar. 10, 2021 06:58 AM EST

A team from Medecins Sans Frontieres carries medicines on their backs across a hillside in Tsaeda Emba, in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia Friday, Feb. 12, 2021. The United Nations in its latest humanitarian report on the situation in Tigray says the "humanitarian situation continues to deteriorate" as fighting intensifies across the northern region. (Medecins Sans Frontieres via AP)
UN aid chief calls for Eritrean forces to leave Tigray

By Edith M. Lederer Mar. 04, 2021 04:00 PM EST

FILE - In this March 2, 2020, file photo, Democratic presidential candidate and former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg speaks during a FOX News Channel Town Hall in Manassas, Va. Bloomberg is one of the 50 Americans who gave the most to charity in 2020, according to the Chronicle of Philanthropy’s annual rankings. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)
Bezos and Bloomberg among top 50 US charity donors for 2020

By Maria Di Mento And Ben Gose Of The Chronicle Of Philanthropy Feb. 09, 2021 11:09 AM EST

Exterior view of the congress center in Davos, Switzerland, Monday, Jan. 25, 2021. The World Economic Forum, WEF, was scheduled to take place in Davos between Jan. 25 and Jan. 29, 2021. Due to the Coronavirus outbreak it will be held in a digital format. (Gian Ehrenzeller/Keystone via AP)
World Food Program chief warns of vulnerable supply chains

Jan. 27, 2021 06:09 AM EST

Nobel Committee chair Berit Reiss-Andersen makes a statement at the Nobel Institute as part of the digital award ceremony for this year's Peace Prize winner, the World Food Program (WFP), in Oslo, Norway, Thursday Dec. 10, 2020. Reiss-Andersen makes a statement in Oslo as part of the Nobel Peace Prize digital award ceremony and an acceptance speech will be made by WFP Executive Director David Beasley in Rome, Italy. (Heiko Junge / NTB via AP)
U.N. food agency receives Nobel prize in online event

By Frances D'emilio And Jan M. Olsen Dec. 10, 2020 05:01 AM EST

In this Sunday, Dec. 6, 2020, photo provided by Nobel Prize Outreach, Louise Glück stands beside the medal awarded to her for the 2020 Nobel Prize in Literature outside her home in Cambridge, Mass. The pomp and ceremony of the Nobel prize ceremonies were altered this year amid measures to slow the spread of the coronavirus. Instead, the laureates' achievements are being rewarded at low-key ceremonies where they live or work. (Daniel Ebersole/ Nobel Prize Outreach via AP)
Nobel ceremonies go low-key this year because of coronavirus

Dec. 07, 2020 06:29 AM EST

A malnourished girl Rahmah Watheeq receives treatment at a feeding center at Al-Sabeen hospital in Sanaa, Yemen, Tuesday. Nov. 3, 2020. Two-thirds of Yemen's population of about 28 million people are hungry, and nearly 1.5 million families currently rely entirely on food aid to survive, with another million people are set to fall into crisis levels of hunger before the year end, according to aid agencies working in Yemen. (AP Photo/Hani Mohammed)
In multiple countries, alarm over hunger crisis rings louder

By Eissa Ahmed, Tameem Akhgar And Samy Magdy Nov. 20, 2020 01:06 AM EST

FILE - World Food Program (WFP) Executive Director David Beasley speaks to the media about the organization's Nobel Peace Prize win, at the airport in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, late Friday, Oct. 9, 2020. Beasley says the Nobel Peace Prize has given the U.N. agency a spotlight and megaphone to warn world leaders that next year is going to be worse than this year, and without billions of dollars “we are going to have famines of biblical proportions in 2021.” (AP Photo/Sam Mednick)
2020 Nobel Peace ceremony won't be held in person in Oslo

Nov. 18, 2020 06:38 AM EST

FILE - World Food Program (WFP) Executive Director David Beasley speaks to the media about the organization's Nobel Peace Prize win, at the airport in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, late Friday, Oct. 9, 2020. Beasley says the Nobel Peace Prize has given the U.N. agency a spotlight and megaphone to warn world leaders that next year is going to be worse than this year, and without billions of dollars “we are going to have famines of biblical proportions in 2021.” (AP Photo/Sam Mednick)
Nobel UN food agency warns 2021 will be worse than 2020

By Edith M. Lederer Nov. 14, 2020 03:34 PM EST

UN food chief: Yemen faces `looming famine,' needs millions

By Edith M. Lederer Nov. 11, 2020 02:41 PM EST
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The head of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning World Food Program sounded an alarm Wednesday that war-torn Yemen faces “looming famine" and...

Nobel winner urges billionaires to save millions from famine

By Edith M. Lederer Oct. 16, 2020 05:18 PM EDT
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The head of the World Food Program, this year’s winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, again urged billionaires to donate just a few billion to...

A bottle containing the drug Remdesivir is held by a health worker at the Institute of Infectology of Kenezy Gyula Teaching Hospital of the University of Debrecen in Debrecen, Hungary, Thursday Oct. 15, 2020. A large study led by the World Health Organization released on Friday, Oct. 16, 2020, suggests that the antiviral drug did not help hospitalized COVID-19 patients, in contrast to an earlier study that made the medicine a standard of care in the United States and many other countries. The results do not negate the previous ones, and the WHO study was not as rigorous as the earlier one led by the U.S. National Institutes of Health. But they add to concerns about how much value the pricey drug gives because none of the studies have found it can improve survival. (Zsolt Czegledi/MTI via AP)
The Latest: New Mexico sets another one-day COVID-19 record

By The Associated Press Oct. 16, 2020 02:42 AM EDT

FILE - In this Feb. 20, 2018 file photo, a Sudanese refugee man sits on his bike after collecting food from a World Food Program (WFP) food distribution in Yida, South Sudan. The World Food Program on Friday, Oct. 9, 2020 won the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize for its efforts to combat hunger and food insecurity around the globe. (AP Photo/Sam Mednick, File)
World Food Program wins Nobel Peace Prize as hunger surges

By Dalatou Mamane, Frank Jordans And Vanessa Gera Oct. 09, 2020 02:11 AM EDT

FILE - In this July 10, 2020, file photo, Alanna McDonnell mixes drinks at Velveteen Rabbit, a cocktail bar in the Las Vegas Arts District in Las Vegas. Bars in and around Las Vegas can reopen after this weekend with limited capacity, distance between customers and facial coverings all around, officials announced Thursday, Sept. 17, 2020. (AP Photo/John Locher, File)
The Latest: Positives from Brazil chief justice inauguration

By The Associated Press Sep. 18, 2020 04:49 AM EDT

In this Nov. 14, 2008, file photo, a woman receives a bag of maize meal from the World Food Program in the town of Rutshuru, eastern Congo. The World Food Program chief warned Thursday, Sept. 17, 2020, that millions of people are closer to starvation because of the deadly combination of conflict, climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic and he urged donor nations and billionaires to help feed them and ensure their survival. (AP Photo/Karel Prinsloo)
UN food chief urges rich to help keep millions from starving

By Edith M. Lederer Sep. 18, 2020 02:31 AM EDT