After President George W Bush's remarks linking Indians' food habits to rising prices of commodities globally, the US is now faulting India and China for the surge in oil prices to record levels.
The White House also sought to calm the frayed nerves in India to Bush's remarks that the rising prosperity of it's large middle class is contributing to rising foods prices around the world saying the US saw "higher living standards" of people there as a "good thing".
"Many developing nations like India or China are having greatly increased demand, which obviously is having an impact on price," White House Deputy Spokesman Scott Stanzel said at a briefing responding to a question on the crude oil price crossing USD 120-mark.
"There are a lot of different ways that we can reduce our dependence, but we have more to do and it's just -- and also I would point out that, obviously, the demand for oil is growing around the world," he said.
Asked to clarify Bush's remarks on Indian's food habits, Stanzel said "We think that it is a good thing that countries are developing; that more and more people have higher and higher standards of living." However, he apparently did not go back on Bush's point that Indian food habits were contributing to spiralling food prices, which in turn, were worsening the global food crisis.
"The point that I think was to be made is that as you increase your standard of living, the food that you eat can venture more into meats that require more commodities to feed the livestock which, you know, uses more of those commodities, whether it's corn, or wheat, or other commodities and it drives up the price. So that is just a function of how those food prices that we've seen spike around the world." PTI
More on U.S. India-bashing….
Politicians across the Indian political spectrum are condemning President Bush's remark, linking high food prices in the West to a growing middle class in India.
From New Delhi, VOA Correspondent Steve Herman reports Indians are pointing the finger back at the United States.
The governing coalition and opposition in India rarely agree on much, but they are united in condemning the American president for saying a growing demand for food grains by India's middle class is partly to blame for the surge in global food prices.
Indian Defense Minister A.K. Antony calls President Bush's comment "a cruel joke" contending that U.S. policies, including advocating bio-fuels, are responsible for higher food prices.
M.A. Nagvi, the vice president of the largest opposition force, the Bharatiya Janata Party, says President Bush is shifting from his earlier role of global "bomb inspector" to world "bread inspector."
West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, a key national Communist leader, says the American president "has gone out of his mind."
The other side of Bushladin's tomfoolery…
As of Wednesday, April 30, 2008, at least 4,063 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. The figure includes eight military civilians. At least 3,307 died as a result of hostile action, according to the military's numbers.
The AP count is five more than the Defense Department's tally, last updated Wednesday at 10 a.m. ET.
The British military has reported 176 deaths; Italy, 33; Ukraine, 18; Poland, 21; Bulgaria, 13; Spain, 11; Denmark, seven; El Salvador, five; Slovakia, four; Latvia, three; Estonia, Netherlands, Thailand, Romania, two each; and Australia, Hungary, Kazakhstan, South Korea, one death each.
Since the start of U.S. military operations in Iraq, 29,829 U.S. service members have been wounded in hostile action, according to the Defense Department's weekly tally, on April 22.
War has wiped out about 655,000 Iraqis or more than 500 people a day since the U.S.-led invasion, a new study reports.
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