Part of it passed over Japan, which responded angrily by suspending food and other aid for the famine-stricken nation.

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Fewer people will die than in 1984 or 1992, when Somalia was famine-stricken.

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Some 50 pages are devoted to a series of articles written in 1939, "The Misery of Kabylia, " detailing life in the famine-stricken northern region.

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The most obvious such crisis might come in the Korean peninsula, where famine-stricken, isolated and possibly nuclear-armed North Korea still hurls war-like threats across the border at South Korea and the 36, 000 or so American troops there.

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In the worst-affected regions of Somalia, cereals prices are 260% higher than they were in 2010, comparable to what happened in Ethiopia, when grain prices in famine-stricken northern provinces in mid-1985 were about 300%-350% of their levels the year before.

ECONOMIST: Did the world react too late to signs of famine in Somalia?