Haiti's government dismissed the country's prime minister Saturday, in an effort to appease angry demonstrators who have violently protested soaring food prices.

President Rene Preval must now find a quick replacement for Jacques Edouard Alexis, whom he had appointed as prime minister in 2006.

The dismissal appeared to have little impact on the continuing violence. On the same day, a UN soldier was fatally shot in Porte-au-Prince. The soldier, only identified as a Nigerian, was about to buy food. He had been part of a 1,000-member unit assigned to deal with the riots.

Preval has announced an emergency plan to reduce rice costs by 15 per cent.

Both Haiti and Bangladesh have experienced skyrocketing food prices, part of a worldwide trend that is widening the gulf between those who can afford to eat and those who cannot. Food prices around the world have risen about 40 per cent since mid-2007.

In Bangladesh, dozens of people were injured in Saturday's riots in Dhaka, where textile workers demanded higher wages to match increased food prices. At least 20 police officers were among the injured.

Bangladesh was the third country to see food-fueled unrest this week. Riots erupted on April 6 in Egypt, where the price of many food staples has doubled in the past year; and went on for most of the week in Haiti, where prices have doubled in the past six months.

On Saturday, Preval announced a plan to lower the price of a 23-kilogram bag of rice from $51 to $43. The subsidy is to be funded by international donors and Haiti's small but prosperous business community, which will contribute $3 per bag.

Most people in Haiti, one of the poorest countries in the western hemisphere, live on less than $2 per day. The country has little arable farmland and is forced to import the majority of its food, including more than 80 per cent of its rice.

According to the UN World Food Program, the situation in Haiti and Bangladesh is not unique. As of December, there were 37 countries facing food crises and 20 that had imposed food price controls of some kind. The program's officials have said they would need a budget increase of $500 million to feed the world's 89 million people who can't afford food for themselves.

According to University of Toronto sociology professor Harriet Friedman, food shortages have been creeping up on the world for about four years, because of increased demand for livestock feed and for raw materials for ethanol and other biofuels.

"Since the last food crisis of the 1970s, more and more of our grains, especially maize and soy, have gone into intensive livestock production," she said, adding that grains with uses other than food are being traded at increasingly high prices. "Grains are starting to be diverted for energy."

The distance of a market from its food supply is also a main factor in the shortage. Countries dependent on imported food and large cities far removed from their food supply also risk increased prices as supply diminishes, Friedman said.

With files from the Associated Press