Ms Sheeran said Egypt had just widened its food rationing system after two decades and Pakistan had reintroduced ration cards after many years.

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There is electricity, food and oil rationing and people are unhappy.

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Otherwise they will have to start rationing food to the hungry.

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The result: by the late 1940s, most of Europe was still rationing food, rebuilding its cities, bridges, and roads, and coming to terms with new political systems.

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Wartime wage-and-price controls were swept away, as was the rationing of food, gasoline and other items.

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We were not short of food, however, as rationing was waived in Coventry for two weeks after the blitz.

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The restrictions once were far more stifling, with rationing of virtually all food and consumer goods.

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Like rationing, this dire, utilitarian approach to food could persist only for so long.

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