Sox First

The global food crisis reaches new extremes with the Washington Post reporting that World Bank President Robert Zoellick has warned that rising food prices had pushed tens of millions of people into extreme poverty last year and were reaching "dangerous levels" in some countries.

According to the World Bank, rising food costs had pushed an additional 44 million people below the threshold of extreme poverty.

We are already seeing the instability this is causing. Governments in Egypt and Tunisia have been toppled and Bloomberg reports that demonstrators have clashed with security forces in Bahrain, Yemen and Iran, emboldened by the success of Egypt's populist uprising against President Hosni Mubarak.

And as with Egypt and Tunisia, food is a major issue in those places. Food prices have reached dangerous levels in more ways than one.

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