Scarce Food

In a remote village in southern Lebanon, Qassem Shreim crouched low to examine his wheat crop. Food costs have soared amid a global wheat crisis and Lebanon's own economic meltdown, but the builder-turned-farmer feels shielded by his self-sufficiency.

All budgets are associated with a sense of resources being scarce and there being trade-offs among competing ends. However, unlike individuals or organisations, government budgets are different. The most obvious reason is that the government constitutes a huge part of the economy. For example, in the latest budget, government expenditure is 13%, an...

Exhausted and terrorised, many of the Yazidis of northern Iraq who straggled into this Kurdish town after escaping the Islamic State deathtrap of Mount Sinjar recalled the agony of leaving relatives exposed on the mountain.

Plastic, gasoline, rubber - a lot of everyday items are based on oil. But as this raw material is becoming increasingly scarce, scientists now plan to produce isobutene - a basic compound used in the chemical industry made from sugar. Isobutene is used...

A Venezuelan supermarket puts a stack of toilet paper on its shop floor, and desperate consumers snatch it up within five minutes. A woman's voice over the loudspeaker reminds shoppers each person can only buy four packages.

In a remote village in southern Lebanon, Qassem Shreim crouched low to examine his wheat crop. Food costs have soared amid a global wheat crisis and Lebanon's own economic meltdown, but the builder-turned-farmer feels shielded by his self-sufficiency.

All budgets are associated with a sense of resources being scarce and there being trade-offs among competing ends. However, unlike individuals or organisations, government budgets are different. The most obvious reason is that the government constitutes a huge part of the economy. For example, in the latest budget, government expenditure is 13%, an...

Exhausted and terrorised, many of the Yazidis of northern Iraq who straggled into this Kurdish town after escaping the Islamic State deathtrap of Mount Sinjar recalled the agony of leaving relatives exposed on the mountain.

Plastic, gasoline, rubber - a lot of everyday items are based on oil. But as this raw material is becoming increasingly scarce, scientists now plan to produce isobutene - a basic compound used in the chemical industry made from sugar. Isobutene is used...

A Venezuelan supermarket puts a stack of toilet paper on its shop floor, and desperate consumers snatch it up within five minutes. A woman's voice over the loudspeaker reminds shoppers each person can only buy four packages.