``The locusts covered the surface of the whole land, so that the land was black; and they did eat every herb of the land, and all the fruit of the trees that the hail had left. ...'' (Exodus 10:15)

The same plague that struck Pharaonic Egypt of the Old Testament continues to threaten Africans today.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) issued desert-locust-infestation alerts in February and March this year. Pesticides were sprayed in northern Africa, which was believed to be where the infestation started, but this was to no avail. Summer came, and serious outbreaks began in northwestern Africa. Twelve African nations declared war on the locusts, saying, ``This is a real war,'' and mobilized their armies.

According to the BBC and other media reports, the plague spread to southern Italy in late August and Africa declared war on the insects. In early September, the United Nations appealed for international support. Mauritania was ``on the brink of famine'' by the end of September, and in November the locusts had invaded Cyprus, the Middle East and the Spanish Canary Islands.

Australia, too, has been ravaged this year by locust swarms. I understand a cookbook has been produced to take the ``ultimate revenge'' of eating them. Titled ``Cooking With Sky Prawns,'' the book says locusts are a fine source of protein and offers various kinds of locust recipes.

Locusts lay eggs in land that has been laid to waste by drought, famine or civil war. There is the cyclical theory that the swarms return when the land has recovered and become verdant again.

But one factor that inhibits field research and the planning of effective countermeasures is that many of the locust-infested regions happen to be politically unstable.

There is a history of these insects migrating all the way from Africa to the Caribbean. Swarms of locusts make us feel that nature can be awesome and menacing.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Dec. 2(IHT/Asahi: December 3,2004)