Morning Briefing

Africa's Sahel region is facing a potential "food crisis," "[b]ut the good news is that the world's Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWS NET) is giving West African countries and donor nations a period of time to prepare, says the aid group Oxfam," the Christian Science Monitor reports. "Early reports suggest that as many as six million people in Niger and 2.9 million people in Mali live in vulnerable areas, where low rainfall, falling groundwater levels, poor harvests, lack of pastureland, rising food prices, and a drop in remittances from family members living abroad are starting to take their toll," according to the newspaper.