Are white and Black people like this? That is, are they so different that they should give up trying to understand each other? If this question sounds absurd to you, we’re on the same page. Still, this is a question worth asking because unfortunately, it is a relatively common sentiment that Black and white people are so fundamentally different that it’s futile for the two to even try to genuinely relate to each other. And it feels a lot like racial groups are being treated like different species—as if there’s little shared ground that can be identified. The negative implications of adopting such an outlook are severe for the relationships that hold society together. But the good news is that we can do something about it if we take this seriously enough.

Are Interracial Connections Futile?

The most recent example of the bleak racial relational outlook I’ve seen involved an interview with Kehinde Andrews about his new book, “The Psychosis of Whiteness.” In fairness, Andrews says his intent is not to generalize psychosis to all white people and that whiteness has less to do with skin color than an acceptance of a Eurocentric worldview. But it’s worth noting that psychosis is a condition characterized by a break from reality, and at its worst, it literally renders people suffering from it unrelatable. So to the extent that people hold this view, he argues, they’re impossible to reason and connect with. And it stands to reason that most of these people would be white.

This view of the futility of meaningful interracial relationships is becoming more mainstream and is well-represented in several top-selling books on race. For example, in his bestselling “Between the World and Me,” Ta-Nehisi Coates said he “will teach [his] boys to have profound doubts that friendship with white people is possible.” In her bestselling “White Fragility,” Robin DiAngelo famously recommended that white women should not cry in front of Black people because it triggers traumatic historical memories of distressed white women as the cause for many Black men’s torture and murder. I contend that if you feel forbidden to cry in front of someone, you do not and cannot have a close relationship with that person.

I’m also reminded of one psychiatrist’s talk at the Yale Child Study Center a couple of years back. Her lecture, entitled “The Psychopathic Problem of the White Mind,” consisted of a litany of opinions about the deep dysfunction of white people (not whiteness as a concept). Her expressed fantasy of shooting white people captured headlines. But as disturbing as this was, what concerned me even more was something she did. Claiming that when it came to white people, there were “no good apples,” she said she had “ghosted” her white friends a few years earlier.

Now, I’m Black, and most of my closest friends are also Black, but I couldn’t imagine thinking about or treating my white friends in that way because to me friendship means a connection that is deep, durable and very personal, not group- or identity-based. The thought that “I need to purge my white/Black friends” is inconceivable, especially when the characteristic under consideration is an immutable physical characteristic, not something any of us choose.

A Race-Based ‘Relational Pessimism’

What all these examples reflect is what I think of as a race-specific case of relational pessimism. This is the idea that forming genuine, mutually caring relationships across the color line is hopeless, either because white and Black experiences are too different from each other or because white people are too attached to the advantages of their whiteness to care enough for Black people. Admittedly, sometimes relational pessimism is warranted: For example, a relationship between a Christian fundamentalist and a staunch atheist is not likely to work out. The same is true for a relationship between an ardent follower of Black Lives Matter and a vehement supporter of Donald Trump. But these represent extremes, not the norm, and one’s race is certainly not a viewpoint.

The central claim of this type of relational pessimism is obviously false. To be true, it would mean that the countless interracial friendships and romantic relationships are dysfunctional or fake, despite the fact that such relationships have experienced rapid growth in the U.S. over the last 50 years. But more importantly, it pollutes and cheapens interpersonal dynamics by reducing individuals in “other” groups to group representatives you can only relate to by way of cultural brokers or allyship—never as true colleagues, friends, or life partners.

In the worst of cases, race-based relational pessimism encourages some white people to acquire and flaunt vanity interracial “friendships,” where the goal is to convince themselves and their social groups of their good progressive values. Under these circumstances, interracial relationships become a means for self-congratulation or boosting social status—tokenism on steroids. When some white people on the right take race-based relational pessimism seriously, it can result in what we’ve seen from the likes of Scott Adams, the “Dilbert” comic strip creator, who implored other white people “to get the hell away from Black people” after learning that 47% of Black people indicated that they either disagreed or were unsure in response to the statement “It’s OK to be white.”

For Black people, race-based relational pessimism encourages attributing all unpleasant interracial interactions to white people’s whiteness, like the “Victoria’s Secret Karen” incident, where a white woman aggressively asked a Black woman to give her space in line at Victoria’s Secret during the pandemic. When the offended Black woman started recording her, the white woman had an emotional outburst—a “Karen” moment—that seems more realistically explained by her developmental disability than her race.

Additionally, this kind of race-based relational pessimism can pervert group cohesiveness in ways that lead to supporting others with superficial similarities even when they commit acts of inhumanity. This happened when Chicago’s Black Lives Matter chapter celebrated, and then backtracked from, Hamas’ slaughter of innocent people.

Societal Consequences

Commitment to race-based relational pessimism also has big societal implications. A functional democracy depends on its people having some trust in their ability to find common ground. But this can’t happen if we believe that entire groups of individuals can’t relate to each other at all. This is a disaster in the making, as a natural consequence of this is for people to harden their in-group boundaries and position themselves against out-groups. It perfectly sets the stage for intense culture wars and potentially real wars, consisting of allies and enemies—and that’s essentially where we find ourselves today.

Before we can start cleaning up this mess, we must first become clear on one of the big drivers of the problem. It’s common for movements attempting to correct an injustice to go too far, and this is what’s happening now. In a reasonable and well-intentioned effort to correct racism and appreciate diversity, we’ve gone to the extreme of overemphasizing difference and identity to the point that we’ve lost sight of our deeper common humanity. Yascha Mounk does an excellent job of tracing the ideological roots of this overcorrection in his new book, “The Identity Trap.”

I point to these liberal failures precisely because I am a liberal. Certainly, the far right has contributed in its own ways to the race-based relational pessimism we see in America. For example, some on the right would rather resort to censorship than do the hard work of changing hearts and minds. But as a liberal myself, I’m especially concerned about liberals abandoning liberalism—in particular, abandoning values of tolerance and individualism. Furthermore, there is no shortage of critiques from liberals against the far right, but there is a shortage of liberal self-reflection.

What to Do?

Although there are good reasons for us to be pessimistic about relationships between races, it’s not the end of the road yet. There are some things we can all do to improve the situation, and schools and parents play crucial roles.

Teach dialogue and debate. It certainly seems that our ability to engage people with different viewpoints has atrophied over the past decade or so. Anecdotal evidence is everywhere, from polarized politics to increased racial and gender tensions to social media mobbing, doxxing and other forms of cyberbullying. If the adults are too far gone, the least we can do is endow our youth with the necessary skills to engage others with different views and to learn something in the process. This can happen through actively incorporating skill development in dialogue and debate in schools. Organizations like The Mill Institute and Braver Angels are doing fantastic work in this area, and aspects of social and emotional learning programs are also relevant for developing these abilities.

Improve civics and history education. With interpersonal alienation and political polarization increasing at such a fast clip, I’ve often wondered about the possibility of another U.S. civil war. But a recent conversation with Paul Carrese, director of the School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership at Arizona State University, convinced me that a much more likely scenario is societal disintegration. That is, we become so cynical, disillusioned and, yes, pessimistic about the American project and our fellow citizens that we just give up trying to forge a society together and it collapses as a result.

This may not sound as tragic as a civil war. But in such a state, who is going to care enough to help the vulnerable, to improve and sustain our many institutions, and to protect us from foreign and domestic enemies? Why give so much of yourself to these projects when you feel that the out-groups are alien to you or unworthy of your effort?

Strengthening our civics and history education would not only help create a more civics- and history-literate citizenry, but it would also help diminish relational pessimism by emphasizing our shared responsibilities to each other. It also reminds us of the many times we and other societies have successfully bridged bigger divides than the ones we’re experiencing now. And of course, it’s essential that the teaching of civics and history be honest and reflective of all the diverse people and perspectives of our country. “Educating for American Democracy,” a report developed by politically diverse scholars, educators and practitioners, including Harvard’s Danielle Allen, has done a great job of this and provides a solid roadmap for what our schools can do to get us there.

Shape values and principles. When figuring out how to relate to others and their ideas, it helps to have a core set of principles and values. Otherwise, you’re more susceptible to following the next popular set of social rules that emerge, especially in the powerfully influential world of social media. Parents can play a central role in this process by shaping and guiding these value systems. For example, we use two strategies in our household to support this. To promote open-mindedness and critical thinking when relating to others, we encourage our son to respectfully ask, “How do you know?” when a claim is made to him that doesn’t make sense. This conveys that just because something doesn’t make sense, it doesn’t mean it’s wrong. So request the reasoning and hear it out. But if the person can’t offer it, you shouldn’t blindly accept that idea.

And to remind our son to be compassionate and tolerant to others, we encourage him to remember that “everyone is working on something.” This includes him, Mom and Dad, and we’re open with him about where we’re trying to grow. To maximize kids’ ability to relate to the widest range of people, the instilled values should not be overly specific to one’s identity group. That is, they need to include universal values—values like respect for diversity and curiosity about others’ views and cultures. This doesn’t require discarding culture-specific values: It just means that when it comes to navigating a diverse social world, culture-specific values aren’t sufficient by themselves unless they’re connected to broader ones.

Foster relational optimism. I want a world where people evaluate the substance of ideas, individuals and relationships, not the physical or ideological markers of them. It’s possible but requires a kind of relational optimism—a belief that it’s not only possible but desirable to form real relationships with others who are different in appearance, thought and behavior. It also requires a very different kind of “doing the work” from interrogating and acknowledging one’s group-level privilege and power and calling out microaggressions.

It means developing an ability to see an individual in front of you, rather than an abstract racial representation. Seeing a person as an individual first and foremost will enable you to engage with them as such rather than using a set of artificial predetermined rules of engagement defined by race gurus. One key civic virtue recommended by the “Educating for American Democracy” report I mentioned above is “civic friendship”—the idea that we are “in this together” and that we can respect our philosophical and partisan differences because we have a deeper respect for each other as fellow Americans. But for this to work, we need enough people committed to the idea.

At the end of the day, the health of our society depends on the strength of our social compacts. So it’s the social fabric of our society that’s at stake for us as we actively drive away from each other. We should treat this with the seriousness it deserves by committing to be weavers of a more connected social fabric.

The post Are Different Races Incompatible? Far From It. appeared first on News Agency nabakhabar.

While the open-air souk may be called the “vegetable market,” it is a bit of a misnomer as everything from fruits and vegetables to meats and fish and sweets are also sold there, stacked high and wide on large wooden tables with so many options available it overwhelms the eye.

Men and women go from stall to stall, asking each of them what they are charging for a kilogram of potatoes or tomatoes while teenagers wave 50,000 lira notes at sweet shops to buy desserts for the family to enjoy later that night once they have broken their fasts.

Despite the wide variety of foods available and iftar, the time when Muslims break their Ramadan fast following sunset, being only hours away, there was little actual buying being done.

The market remains one of the cheapest places for Tripoli’s residents to buy food from, but even there, prices have become unaffordable to many  Tripolitans, as the residents of Lebanon’s second largest city are referred to. The country’s economic crisis has gone into a tailspin since the start of the year, with the lira, Lebanon’s national currency, surpassing 100,000 to $1. The 100,000 lira note, the largest of Lebanon’s currency, was worth around $67 before the crisis started in October 2019.

Where many once bought kilograms of meat and vegetables that would feed a small family for a week, they now only buy small bags of vegetables and, if they can afford it, an even smaller bag of meat or chicken, but it is all too little to feed a family for just a few days.

“The situation as you can see, it’s horrible,” Mahmoud Nasrallah, 36, told NOW. “For example, you see a lady going to the souk carrying one million Lebanese Lira in her purse, given by her husband that went head over heels to earn this one million L.L, you see her buying groceries with this amount and leaving the market in tears because she just paid everything she has to get minimal stuff.”

Since the start of the crisis, Ramadan celebrations have become increasingly muted as purchasing power has depleted with the value of the lira and climbing inflation.

In a March 23 statement, the International Monetary Fund warned that Lebanon’s triple-digit inflation will continue to spiral in a never-ending cycle unless serious reforms are implemented, something that the country’s politicians have refused to do even as the crisis is well into its fourth year.

There is also little work available that pays a living wage.

Some are having to work multiple jobs just to cover basic expenses and take care of their families, others pull their children out of school so that they can add another breadwinner to the family. But with the worsening value of the lira and the rising prices, this is also becoming insufficient.

This is felt especially hard in Tripoli which, despite its stature as Lebanon’s “capital in the north,” is arguably also the country’s most neglected and impoverished city.

Even in once traditionally cheaper areas, such as the souk, buying large quantities of food is no longer an option; instead, people have to calculate how much they can buy to at least have some food in their stomachs as well as how much they can save for later in the month as prices could rise even further with the volatile lira rate seemingly rising and lowering at a whim.

In past years, if people needed something cheap to eat, they would cook potatoes, but with the price of oil reaching once unimaginable heights, even this can prove to be too much at times.

Meat, which can cost hundreds of thousands of lira, is not even an option for most.

“We are craving meat; it’s been ages since we had meat,” Nasrallah stated. “Even when we want to eat fries, we need to buy the potatoes and get oil to fry them, this alone costs more than 500,000 LL.”

During Ramadan, Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset, with many families in the past breaking their fasts with large meals,  dishes containing a plethora of vegetables, meats, grains and spices.

This is no longer the case, with meals now being much simpler and smaller with the most vulnerable managing what could only be charitably described as a meal.

“Ramadan is about being with the family and being closer to God. It is so nice to sit with the family after a long day of fasting at the dining table full of food that we crave, but, unfortunately, this is not the case anymore,” Nasrallah explained.

“I have seen people break their fast on a plate of fries, and dates. Nothing more. A whole family breaking their fast on this. These people are good people, they do not steal, or kill, etc. They are just good people who are praying for a better living.”

According to Nasrallah, a growing number of people are taking the slowly rotting fruits and vegetables that they find on the street in order to avoid having to spend the extra money to get fresh produce.

It is a tragedy, he exclaimed, cursing the country’s politicians for putting them in this situation and for doing nothing to help them in their time of need.

Nasrallah is unable to hold a steady job due to a physical disability, making his situation even more difficult.

Married for seven years, he and his family live in the attic of his family home as they are unable to afford any other living situation.

“I cannot even buy my daughter a bag of chips,” he said solemnly.

Coffee shops, once crowded and bustling with life after families have had their iftar meals, are also a shadow of their former selves.

The Mousa Coffee Shop in the Bab al-Raml neighborhood of Tripoli has long been a local favorite during Ramadan with the square, usually empty, filled with tables and seats where friends and families would sit for several hours together ordering coffees and tea and taking long tokes from their hookahs while talking and laughing with each other into the early hours of the following morning.

Previously, the coffee shop was packed with people, making it almost impossible to find a place to sit, but this year, a handful of tables that people once competed over remind empty.

For others, though, Ramadan has presented a brief opportunity for improving their situation and a chance to breathe a sigh of relief, no matter how brief it might be.

“Ramadan this year is better for me personally,” Wasif Habbib, a 36-year-old baker, told NOW. “Last year, I needed to hand out the food that I could not sell in the day, but this year I am selling all the food that I am making.”

Food undoubtedly plays a major role in Ramadan celebrations, with emphasis being put on family iftar meals where the gatherings traditionally see large table spreads of food.

Even with the ongoing economic crisis and the high prices, people continue to try to keep this tradition going to the best that they can.

One traditional staple is the tiny pastries that bakeries make that are covered in cheese, zaatar, small quantities of meat, or vegetables.

For Habbib, this means he is almost always able to sell his daily stock during the holy month rather than worrying whether or not it will go to waste.

Just on the outskirts of souk al-khodrat, Habib stands behind a small table where he has his selection of pastries displayed on large metal trays for people to choose from.

He is constantly moving around, grabbing a small plastic bag and putting a handful of the pastries in them as customers continue to come in a steady flow.

The economic crisis has been hard on him. He works alongside two other people and most of the money that he makes goes towards buying supplies to bake more pastries, leaving him with only around 100,000 lira at the end of the day.

Flour costs around $32, he says, while cheese can vary in price with some going for around $6 to $60, demanding a significant portion of his daily earnings.

“Before I used to put more money from my profit to cover the debt, now I’m buying wares from my profit,” Habbib stated. “I am barely receiving anything at the end. I am barely making it.”

Prior to the start of Ramadan, he almost always had dozens of pastries left over at the end of the day and he had to practically beg people to take them for free so that they would not go to waste in the trash, a dramatic shift from just a few years ago when many bakeries could barely keep up with the daily demand and when children might buy a dozen of the same types of pastries that Habbib sells before they went to school in the morning.

While business might be good now, he knows that it will not be permanent and is likely only a temporary reprieve from the daily struggles and frustration that he faced just two months before.

“After Ramadan, I do not know what to expect. I am living day by day. Maybe the dollar rate to Lebanese Lira would reach 150,00 LL. Who knows,” the baker said, shrugging at the unknown and potentially bleak future that awaits him.

Many small shop owners are sympathetic to their customer’s situations and do not want to charge exorbitant prices for the goods that they sell, but they also need to make a living so that they can feed their own families.

With the dollar rate constantly fluctuating every day, Habbib says that business owners are struggling just like everyone else.

Prices differ from store to store, with Habbib charging around 80,000 lira for his pastries while other shops may charge well over 100,000. But no matter what they charge, it is still never enough to cover all of their expenses, as whatever prices they set in the morning are quickly made redundant by the shifting in the lira’s value.

“We are just working to eat and drink. Not more,” he said. “If we need any medical help or care, it will not be possible to afford. We will die.”

Ramadan still has over two weeks remaining, and with the economic crisis in full swing , Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan, is widely expected to be just as quiet as the month that preceded it, with families having little other choice but to celebrate over smaller, humbler meals as they reminisce about the celebrations that they once enjoyed.

The post A silent Ramadan appeared first on News Agency nabakhabar.

After weighing the evidence on the compound’s safety, the FDA will decide within months how to regulate legal cannabis and whether that will require new agency rules or new legislation from Congress, according to the report.

Shares of U.S.-listed cannabis companies were down between 5% and 9% in afternoon trade, following the report.

Cannabidiol, or CBD, is a non-psychoactive compound derived from cannabis.

Cannabis products, excluding Jazz Pharmaceuticals Plc’s (JAZZ.O) Epidiolex, are illegal at the federal level in the United States, although some states allow their use.

The agency wants to know if CBD can be safely eaten every day for a long period or during pregnancy amid concerns about future fertility, Patrick Cournoyer, who heads the FDA office developing the agency’s cannabis strategy, told WSJ.

When asked for comment, the FDA referred Reuters to a statement from last year that said the agency was taking steps to improve regulatory pathways for the lawful marketing of appropriate cannabis and cannabis-derived products.

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Consumer prices surged 8.6% last month from 12 months earlier, faster than April’s year-over-year increase of 8.3%, the Labor Department said Friday. The new inflation figure, the biggest yearly increase since December 1981, will heighten pressure on the Federal Reserve to continue raising interest rates aggressively.

On a month-to-month basis, prices jumped 1% from April to May, much faster than the 0.3% increase from March to April. Behind that surge were much higher prices for food, energy, rent, airline tickets and new and used cars.

The widespread price increases also elevated so-called “core” inflation, a measure that excludes volatile food and energy prices. In May, core prices jumped a sharp 0.6% for a second straight month and are now 6% above where they were a year ago.

Friday’s report underscored the worry that inflation is broadening well beyond the spike in energy prices stemming from clogged supply chains and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. And the increased pressure on the Fed to raises rates even faster — which will mean higher-cost loans for consumers and businesses — raises the risk of recession.

“Virtually every sector has higher-than-normal inflation,” said Ethan Harris, head of global economic research at Bank of America. “It’s made its way into every nook and cranny of the economy. That’s the thing that makes it concerning because it means it’s likely to persist.”

Gas prices jumped 4% just in May and have soared nearly 50% from a year ago. They’ve risen further this month. The national average price at the pump reached $4.99 Friday, according to AAA.

The cost of groceries surged nearly 12% last month from a year earlier, the biggest such increase since 1979. Restaurant prices jumped 7.4% in the past year, the largest 12-month gain since November 1981, reflecting higher costs for food and workers.

Housing costs are also climbing. The government’s shelter index, which includes rents, hotel rates and a measure of what it costs to own a home, increased 5.5% in the past year, the most since 1991. Airline fares have skyrocketed nearly 38% in the past year, the sharpest such rise since 1980.

America’s rampant inflation is imposing severe pressures on families, forcing them to pay much more for food, gas and rent and reducing their ability to afford discretionary items, from haircuts to electronics. Lower-income and Black and Hispanic Americans, in particular, are struggling because, on average, a larger proportion of their income is consumed by necessities.

Some evidence in recent weeks had suggested that inflation might be moderating, particularly for long-lasting goods that were caught up in supply chain snarls and shortages last year. But that trend appeared to reverse itself in May, with used car prices rising 1.8% after having dropped for three straight months. New car prices also rose. And clothing prices increased after having declined in April.

In light of Friday’s inflation reading, the Fed is all but certain to carry out the fastest series of interest rate hikes in three decades. By sharply raising borrowing costs, the Fed hopes to cool spending and growth enough to curb inflation without tipping the economy into a recession. For the central bank, it will be a difficult balancing act.

The Fed has signaled that it will raise its key short-term rate by a half-point — double the size of the usual hike — next week and again in July. Some investors had hoped the Fed would then dial back its rate increases to a quarter-point increase when it meets in September or perhaps even pause its credit tightening. But with inflation raging hot, investors now increasingly expect yet another half-point hike in September, which would be its fourth since April.

Surveys show that Americans see high inflation as the nation’s top problem, and most disapprove of President Joe Biden’s handling of the economy. Congressional Republicans are hammering Democrats on the issue in the run-up to midterm elections this fall.

Surging inflation has forced Rocky Harper of Tucson, Arizona, to start doing gig work for delivery companies, on top of his regular full-time job with a package delivery service. His main job pays $800 a week, he said, which “used to be really good money and is now just above dirt-poor.”

Harper, 43, said he and his fiancée are delaying marriage because they can’t afford it right now. They’ve cut off Netflix and Hulu. His car’s catalytic converter was stolen recently — an increasingly common theft — for the rare metals they contain that have shot up in price. A repair will cost $1,300.

“With the food, gas and rent — holy cow,” he said. “I’m working a massive amount of overtime, just to make it, just to keep it together.”

A report from the World Bank this week made clear that high inflation is a global problem that threatens to slow economies around the world. Russia’s war in Ukraine has hit hard in Europe, where utility bills, business costs and gasoline prices have surged because of its dependence on Russian oil and natural gas.

For the 19 countries that use the euro currency, inflation fueled by rising food and fuel prices hit a record 8.1% last month, leading the European Central Bank to announce Thursday that it will raise interest rates for the first time in 11 years, starting in July and again in September.

In the coming months, goods prices in the United States are expected to finally drop. Many large retailers, including Target, Walmart and Macy’s, have reported that they’re now stuck with too much of the patio furniture, electronics and other goods that they ordered when those items were in heavier demand and will have to discount them.

Even so, rising gas prices are eroding the finances of millions of Americans. Prices at the pump are averaging nearly $5 a gallon nationally and edging closer to the inflation-adjusted record of about $5.40 reached in 2008.

Research by the Bank of America Institute, which uses anonymous data from millions of their customers’ credit and debit card accounts, shows spending on gas eating up a larger share of consumers’ budgets and crowding out their ability to buy other items.

For lower-income households — defined as those with incomes below $50,000 — spending on gas reached nearly 10% of all spending on credit and debit cards in the last week of May, the institute said in a report this week. That’s up from about 7.5% in February, a steep increase in such a short period.

Spending by all the bank’s customers on long-lasting goods, like furniture, electronics and home improvement, has plunged from a year ago, the institute found. But their spending on plane tickets, hotels and entertainment has continued to rise.

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Political Cartoons on the Economy

The Fed has said it will begin dialing back its $120-billion-per-month purchases of Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities, which many analysts believe will begin after the Fed’s November meeting. An increase in interest rates from their current historically low levels is unlikely before next year, however.

The post Inflation Rises in September, Fueled by Energy, Food and Housing appeared first on News Agency nabakhabar.

As we age, the appearance of wrinkles in our skin and increasing hyperpigmentation are common skin problems. And while no one food or product will totally prevent or erase wrinkles, new research reveals that consuming almonds daily may help reduce wrinkles and other signs of aging for postmenopausal women.

The post Eating This Food May Help Prevent Wrinkles, According to New Research appeared first on News Agency nabakhabar.

Devastating footage of starving 12yo girl weighing just 10 kg captures Yemen war horror

 

The relatives planned to use the money, paid for the child brides, to buy food and shelter.

“They think this is the only way” to stay alive, Oxfam’s director for Yemen, Muhsin Siddiquey, told RT. “They can bring the dowry, and that can protect the whole family and other extended members.”

Overall, “10 million are just on the brink of famine” in Yemen, he said, adding that the four years of war also sparked “the worst cholera crisis in the century.”

“If the humanitarian assistance is not provided timely” and the food supply becomes “nonfunctional even for a day… there will be much more catastrophic situations,” Siddiquey stressed.

The conflict in Yemen, exacerbated by the Saudi-led intervention in 2015, placed a heavy toll on the civilian population, with 400,000 children suffering from “life-threatening” malnutrition, according to the UN figures.

Housing also remains an acute problem since much of homes were demolished by deadly air raids.

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If the shift is maintained, it will have negative ecosystem impacts, they warn.

Already there is some evidence that macaroni penguins and fur seals may be finding it harder to get enough of the krill to support their populations.

“Our results suggest that over the past 40 years, the amount of krill has, on average, gone down, and also the location of the krill has contracted to much less of the habitat. That suggests all these other animals that eat krill will face much more intense competition with each other for this important food resource,” Simeon Hill from the British Antarctic Survey told BBC News.

The study is published in the journal Nature Climate Change.

It focuses on the Scotia Sea and the Antarctic Peninsula – the places where the crustaceans are most abundant.

Scientists have been gathering data in these areas since the 1920s.

Initially, krill catches were recorded to understand the environmental consequences of commercial whaling, but the information has continued to be collected through to the present.

Dr Hill and colleagues say the change in the distribution and density of the crustaceans is a clear signal that emerges in the data from the late 1980s onwards.

It coincides with a phase change in a climate oscillation known as the Southern Annular Mode.

The SAM essentially describes the dominant pattern of pressure zones in the southern hemisphere outside of the tropics.

The mode’s switch in state in the late 80s produced warmer, cloudier, windier weather, and much less sea-ice in those areas where the krill had tended to congregate.

The larval stage of the crustaceans in particular has been strongly associated with the presence of a sea-ice habitat.

Predicted changes under way

The team’s analysis indicates the centre of krill distribution has now moved to where more favourable conditions are found, tracking southward towards the Antarctic continent by about 440km, or four degrees of latitude.

“The average size of krill has lengthened over this period of time as well,” said Dr Hill.

“And that’s because the population has increasingly become dominated by older and larger animals. This is a result of a decline in the number of krill entering the population – what we call juvenile recruitment.”

Margaret McBride, from the Norwegian Institute of Marine Research in Bergen, has written a comment article on the research in the same edition of Nature Climate Change.

She said models had predicted that krill would shift southwards in the future, whereas the new research suggested this contraction was already under way.

“It offers a profoundly adverse, but highly plausible, endgame for Antarctic krill that has serious implications for both the Southern Ocean food web and sustainable management of fisheries targeting this species,” she wrote.

The krill do not only support marine mammals and seabirds; an international fishery also extracts something on the order of a quarter of a million tonnes of the crustaceans each year in the Antarctic region.

The campaign group WWF-UK said the study showed “the need to protect the waters off the Antarctic Peninsula with an effective network of marine protected areas – placing conservation above fishing interests.”

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