Every minute, 12 children die hungry

A dozen children under the age of five die every minute from hunger-related diseases and the number of malnourished is on the rise, a new UN report has said.

It expressed doubt that the world can meet the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) that calls for the halving of the number of hungry people by 2015.

While some countries have made gains in the last decade, many others have regressed, including India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan and Sudan, it said.

In a report to the General Assembly, the Special Rapporteur on the right to food Jean Ziegler said it is indefensible that so many small children are still dying because they do not have enough food to eat.

"How can we continue to live with this shame?"

he asked. The time has come "to enforce the right to food," he said.

Ziegler said hunger is neither inevitable nor acceptable. "We live in a world that is richer than ever before and that is entirely capable of eradicating hunger," he writes.

"There is no secret as to how to eradicate hunger. There is no need for new technologies. There is simply the need for political commitment to challenge existing policies that make the rich richer and the poor poorer."

At least 842 million people were permanently or gravely undernourished last year, an increase of 2 million on the previous year's figures.

Hunger levels have risen every year since the World Food Summit in 1996 called for global action to stem the trend, Ziegler said.