Afghanistan reels from food crisis

Hungry Afghans looking for their next meal eye bread scraps piled up like heaps of trash at a Kabul market. A vendor weighs out fistfuls of the stale crusts with hand-scales. A Pashtun woman waits with an empty plastic sack.

The woman is not scavenging, she is paying for leftovers that in better times people fed to their sheep and cows. She said her household of 14 people gave up fresh bread a month ago as the price of this Afghan staple spiraled out of reach.

Rising global food prices have hit few places as hard as Afghanistan. The cost of wheat flour has shot up 75 percent in three months, fueling anger against the US-backed government of President Hamid Karzai. In the volatile south, officials fear it could boost recruitment for the Taliban.