Archives: Morning Breakouts

More than one million Zimbabweans will need food aid between now and March 2012 because of poor harvests and food prices out of reach for vulnerable families, the U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) said Monday, the Associated Press reports (11/21). The agency "said it was facing a $42 million funding shortfall for food aid it planned to provide to vulnerable households in Zimbabwe's hardest-hit areas until the start of the harvest season in March," Reuters writes (11/21). According to a recent survey, "12 percent of the rural population will not have the means to feed themselves adequately during the lean season," a WFP press release notes, adding, "Most at risk are low-income families hit by failed harvests, and households with orphans and vulnerable children" (11/21).

"The United Nations independent expert on access to water and sanitation as a human right [on Saturday] urged States to allocate more resources to improving sanitation and promote efficient use of existing hygiene facilities, stressing that people are entitled to decent toilets," the U.N. News Centre reports. "'Lack of sanitation implies the loss of millions of school and work days as well as enormous health costs,' said Catarina de Albuquerque, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Human Right to Safe Drinking Water and Sanitation, in a statement to mark the World Toilet Day, which is observed on 19 November each year," the news service writes (11/19).

The Wall Street Journal last week held its CEO Council, "assembl[ing] nearly 100 chief executives of large companies for a day and a half to discuss the policy choices facing business and government, and the effects those choices may have on the global economy." The CEOs formed five task forces to discuss priority areas, including global health, according to the newspaper (11/21). The Wall Street Journal summarizes the top four recommended priorities from the task-force discussion on global health, which include fighting non-communicable diseases, encouraging the global use of health technologies, targeting vaccine-preventable diseases, and stopping the spread of HIV/AIDS (Landro, 11/21).

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.