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A United Nations report says world food prices stayed the same in August. Prices were unchanged after rising sharply in July.
 
A summer of drought in the United States and Russia has reduced expectations for corn and wheat supplies. As a result, a measure of food prices by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization rose six percent in July. But FAO economist Concepcion Calpe says the expected reductions did not get any worse in August.

CONCEPCION CALPE: "We're not in a bad situation, or as bad situation as we were last month because the prospects are not worsening further. And this is already good news."
 
Ms. Calpe says the FAO price index remains about ten percent below its highest level, reached in February twenty-eleven. But prices are still twice as high as they were ten years ago.
 
Demand remains high for food commodities like maize and wheat. The U.N. estimates that more cereal crops will be consumed this year than will be produced. That means markets will have to use some of the supplies that have been kept in reserve. Concepcion Calpe says those reserves have been low for several years.
 
CONCEPCION CALPE: "And therefore we are very much susceptible to very quick changes because there is very little buffer on which to rely to protect ourselves should there be another bad news on the production front."
 
She says there will be ups and downs in prices until production meets the level of demand. Still, many experts do not expect a repeat of the crisis of two thousand seven and two thousand eight. Prices jumped, playing a part in civil unrest in several countries.
 
For one thing, these experts point out that energy prices are lower now. That means producing and transporting food is not as costly. And Gary Ellerts at the United States Agency for International Development says this year's bad weather has not affected another important crop: rice. Mr. Eilerts is head of the agency's Famine Early Warning System.
 
GARY EILERTS: "Rice is very calm, very nice. Prices are not volatile. There's a large supply. And so, countries that depend on that, that were hurt a great deal in two thousand eight, are not being touched right now."
 
However, economist Lourdes Adriano at the Asian Development Bank says prices could increase if India stops exporting rice because of a drought.
 
LOURDES ADRIANO: "If we have a severe monsoon in India and it starts banning again the export of rice, then we will have a major problem. Because as you know, global rice trade is very thin. There are very, very few major exporters."
 
Prices jumped when India banned rice exports in two thousand eight during the food inflation crisis.
 
And that's the VOA Special English Agriculture Report. I'm Jim Tedder.

Watch Monday, September 10, 2012 on PBS. See more from PBS NewsHour.

Opposition leader Isabelle Ameganvi, on August 25, calls on Togo's women to observe a one-week

sex strike to demand the resignation of the president

This is the VOA Special English Health Report.
 
Last month, women in a civil rights group in Togo called a weeklong sex strike to try to force the president of the West African nation to resign. Members of "Let's Save Togo" planned to withhold sex from their husbands to pressure the men to take action against President Faure Gnassingbe.
 
The opposition says his family has ruled Togo for too long. He became president in two thousand five, shortly after the death of his father -- who had held power for thirty-eight years.
 
Withholding sex for political goals has a long history. It was used in ancient Greece. In the play "Lysistrata," the women of Athens decide to stop having sex with their husbands until the men end the Peloponnesian War.
 
But do sex strikes work? Pepper Schwartz is a professor of sociology at the University of Washington in Seattle. She says the idea is good for making news headlines, but it takes a lot of work.
 
PEPPER SCHWARTZ: "If you're talking about a few days where women make a point, I think that works. If you're talking about turning a whole nation around because nobody's getting any, I wouldn't put hard money on that because I don't think people stick to sex strikes. Yes, it's good to bring consciousness to your mate, [but] it's probably hard to stick to. Three, if you do stick to it too long, you might lose that other person's willingness to support your issue. So it's a tricky thing. I think it's a good headline, a lot harder to put into practice."
 
But pro-democracy activists in Togo say a sex strike during the civil war in Liberia gave them cause for hope. In two thousand three, Liberia had been through fourteen years of war. Leaders of the group Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace organized a series of nonviolent actions. Those included a sex strike.
 
The actions earned the group's leader a share of the twenty-eleven Nobel Peace Prize. Leymah Gbowee shared the prize with two other women, including Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf. She became Africa's first democratically elected female president in two thousand six. The third winner was Tawakkul Karman, a women's rights activist in Yemen.
 
Yaliwe Clarke is a lecturer in gender studies at the University of Cape Town in South Africa.
 
YALIWE CLARKE: "I think if there's a sharing of the gains of this approach with other African women, then it will inspire them just like in Liberia -- this, the way in which the Mass Action for Peace, the methods that the women used in Liberia for the Mass Action for Peace. They've been written about, a film has been made, so now, you know African women are saying, 'Well, we can do that, as well.'"
 
But Pepper Schwartz at the University of Washington says women need to hold real power in order for something like a sex strike to work.
 
PEPPER SCHWARTZ: "They only work in proportion to the amount of power women have in a society. In other words, you have to have a certain amount of power already to tell your husband no. In some societies your husband would pound on you or, you know, enact his own kinds of revenge, but you have to have a society where a man respects a woman's opinion and her desire to say no and will, in fact, respect her for it."
 
And that's the VOA Special English Health Report. For more stories for people learning English, go to voaspecialenglish.com. I'm Steve Ember.

City officials, union representatives and parents are all speaking out about a major teachers' strike in Chicago. Hear what they have to say in Tuesday's edition of CNN Student News. Plus, America remembers the victims of the 9/11 terror attacks, and challenges accompany a transfer of power in Afghanistan. Finally, we explain how an oil company plans to drill in the Arctic.

This is IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English.
 
Thursday night, at the Democratic National Convention, President Barack Obama accepted his party's nomination for a second term.
 
BARACK OBAMA: "If you believe in a country where everyone gets a fair shot and everyone does their fair share and everybody plays by the same rules, then I need your vote in November!"
 
Mr. Obama said he supports the middle class while Republican nominee Mitt Romney favors the wealthy. He said the differences between them give voters "the clearest choice of any time in a generation."
 
"Over the next few years," he said, "big decisions will be made in Washington on jobs, the economy, taxes and deficits, energy, education, war and peace." And he added, those decisions "will have a huge impact on our lives and on our children's lives for decades to come."
 
Mr. Obama told the convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, that he was mindful of his "failings."
 
BARACK OBAMA: "But know this, America. Our problems can be solved. Our challenges can be met. The path we offer may be harder, but it leads to a better place. And I'm asking you to choose that future."
 
On foreign policy, he said that "for all the progress we've made, challenges remain."
 
BARACK OBAMA: "Terrorist plots must be disrupted. Europe's crisis must be contained. Our commitment to Israel's security must not waver, and neither must our pursuit of peace. "
 
What did delegates think after the speech?
 
DELEGATES: "I do think he's going to win the important states, maybe by squeakers, but that's all that it takes!" "We are very confident as Democrats as to what's ahead of us, and we are confident as to what we must do, and we are confident as to what we know is going to happen, so we're happy. I'm excited."
 
Mr. Obama spoke after Vice President Joe Biden accepted the Democratic nomination for a second term. Mr. Biden offered two examples that he said showed the president's bravery. One was approving the operation that killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. The other was deciding to rescue the American auto industry.
 
JOE BIDEN: "We can now proudly say what you have heard me say the last six months: Osama bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive!"
 
On Wednesday night, former President Bill Clinton urged Americans to elect Mr. Obama to another four years.
 
BILL CLINTON: "We believe that 'we're all in this together' is a far better philosophy than 'you are on your own.'"
 
MICHELLE OBAMA: "Barack knows the American Dream because he's lived it."
 
On Tuesday, Michelle Obama spoke to the delegates on the first night of the convention.
 
MICHELLE OBAMA: "For Barack, success isn't about how much money you make. It's about the difference you make in people's lives."
 
For the first time a Latino gave one of the major speeches at the Democratic convention. Julian Castro is the mayor of San Antonio, Texas, and a son of Mexican immigrants.
 
JULIAN CASTRO: "When it comes to getting the middle class back to work, Mitt Romney says, 'No.' When it comes to respecting women's rights, Mitt Romney says, 'No.'"
 
The election is November sixth. Opinion surveys have being showing a close race.
 
On Friday morning, the government released the jobs report for August. It showed that the economy added just ninety-six thousand jobs. The unemployment rate remained above eight percent for the forty-third month in a row.
 
Mitt Romney, on a campaign visit to Iowa, said the report shows that Mr. Obama "hasn't lived up to his promises and his policies haven't worked."
 
Mr. Obama, campaigning in New Hampshire, said the report was "not good enough." But he noted that the economy has added jobs for the past thirty months. It was losing eight hundred thousand jobs a month when he took office.
 
And that's IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English. I'm Steve Ember.

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