I saw the newspaper headline “Hunger kills 18,000 kids each day” and thought to myself, “What kind of planet is this?”

“Today 850 million people are hungry and malnourished. Over half of them are children. 18,000 children die every single day because of hunger and malnutrition,” a February 19 AP report quoted outgoing United Nations World Food Program Executive Director James Morris as saying.

“This is a shameful fact -- a terrible indictment of the world in 2007, and it's an issue that needs to be solved,” he added.

Indeed, it is a terrible indictment of the world and a problem that needs to be solved.

Morris said there are over 100 million malnourished children in India, nearly 40 million in China, probably 100 million hungry children in the rest of Asia, another 100 million in Africa, and 30 million in Latin America.

This is the bitter fruit of globalization and the neoliberal economic model.

There is a web site called Prison Planet, which is a relatively astute appellation for the current system of global oppression.

However, it might be more accurate to call this dystopian vision of the future, which seems to have arrived at our doorsteps ahead of schedule, Slave Planet or Hunger Planet.

According to some experts, the world produces enough food to feed 8 billion people and there is enough fertile land to feed perhaps 10 billion people, but the world population is only 6.5 billion.

About 13 percent of the people on Earth are starving and another 37 percent are living on less than two dollars a day, meaning that half of all humanity is living in poverty.

Yet, while the have-nots starve, the haves in the richer countries are dying of obesity.

Hunger and gluttony -- Hunger Planet is a land of extreme contrasts.

So how did this happen?

According to one theory, a plan to depopulate the planet is being implemented that specifically targets the people of the Third World.

Others say that it is just gross incompetence on the part of those in charge of poverty alleviation programs coupled with the indifference of the haves in the Global North to the plight of the have-nots in the Global South.

However, incompetence and indifference could not create this vast genocide of hunger, which seems to be orchestrated.

Thus, it seems there is a world depopulation program.

Several activists fighting for social justice have pointed out that most of the countries that have recently experienced famine, war, and high rates of HIV/AIDS are also the countries with the highest birth rates.

Could this be just a coincidence?

Yet, whatever the cause of the silent genocide of hunger, something must be done about it now.

Where is our compassion? Where is our humanity?

Do we want to live in a world like this? Do we want to be citizens of Hunger Planet?

A better world is possible. But to build this better world, everyone must play their role.

But how can people find their roles?

Trust your heart and you will know what to do.

If humanity can get through this dark night of the soul, the dawn will break.