Archives: Morning Breakouts

In this CNN opinion piece, Jenna Davis -- a faculty member in Stanford University's Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, where her research and teaching focuses on water, sanitation and health, and a former member of the U.N. Millennium Task Force for Water and Sanitation -- reports on what she calls a "global sanitation crisis," writing, "More than 40 percent of the world's population does not have access to a toilet. These 2.6 billion people, most living in low- and middle-income countries in Asia and Africa, face the daily challenge of finding a bush, train track or empty lot where they can urinate and defecate in relative privacy."

The vision of an "AIDS-free generation" presented in a speech earlier this month by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton "is under threat in Congress," as "[t]he House and the Senate are discussing significant cuts to the 2012 Obama administration request for global health funding," Jeanie Yoon, a physician with Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), writes in a Baltimore Sun opinion piece. Yoon describes an MSF program in Zambia working to prevent mother-to-child HIV transmission (PMTCT), saying such programs "provide an opportunity for mothers be tested for HIV (as well as other dangerous conditions for pregnant women) and to take the steps needed for them and their babies to live healthy lives; as well as for communities to gain productive members instead of incurring yet more losses."

"If we are to succeed in alleviating poverty and providing the necessary framework for sustainable development on our planet, there is no more pressing need than ensuring the supply of affordable food for our people," Pascal Lamy, director-general of the World Trade Organization, writes in the Guardian's "Poverty Matters Blog." He continues, "There are two keys to tackling this problem, enhancing production -- particularly in Africa -- and ensuring that trade in food flows unhindered from the lands of the plenty to the lands of the few. Without immediate action in these two areas, there is a risk that hunger will become even more widespread, with many million more lives at stake" (11/21).

Intellectual Property Watch reports on a panel event at the World Intellectual Property Organization held by the intergovernmental South Centre and non-governmental Knowledge Ecology International (KEI) on November 14, 10 years after the World Trade Organization (WTO) adopted the Doha Declaration on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) and Public Health. The panel "review[ed] the extent to which the intellectual property and licensing flexibilities recognized in the declaration have helped developing and least developed countries gain access to essential medicines," and addressed the question, "Is the 10 years of Doha an anniversary to celebrate?" the news service writes.

The U.N. and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) working to fight an outbreak of cholera that has infected more than 17,000 people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) need an additional $5.5 million to help their efforts, Elisabeth Byrs, a spokesperson for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said on Friday, the U.N. News Centre reports (11/18). "The U.N. says donations received will go toward improving water and sanitation and providing medical assistance for victims," the VOA "Breaking News" blog writes (11/19). "This $5.5 million is really urgently needed because the rainy season is set to begin," Byrs said, Agence France-Presse notes (11/19).

News outlets are following up developments in the wake of the Supreme Court's decision to take on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act.

Today's early morning highlights from the major news organizations.

U.S. and U.N. food agencies on Friday said three famine zones in Somalia had been downgraded to emergency status, as aid had reduced death rates, but "three other areas -- including the refugee communities of Somalia's capital, Mogadishu -- remain in the famine zone," the Associated Press/CBSNews reports. The agencies "warn[ed] that a quarter million Somalis face imminent starvation, and that military battles are preventing food deliveries," according to the AP (11/18). The U.N. Food Security Nutrition Analysis Unit (FSNAU) said in a statement, "Overall, food security outcomes remain the worst in the world, and the worst in Somalia since the 1991/92 famine," Agence France-Presse notes (11/18).

While the recent report from a High-Level Independent Review Panel of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, "and the corresponding decisions of the Board, mark an important step towards the necessary improvements the Global Fund must make to fulfill its vital mandate in the coming decade and beyond," "the report does not provide direction or solutions on certain critical issues that will define the further success and impact of the Global Fund," Richard Feachem, founding executive director of the Global Fund, writes in a Lancet commentary.