Archives: Morning Breakouts

High rates of malnutrition in the Horn of Africa, combined with violence in Somali, "are threatening 'a human tragedy of unimaginable proportions,' the UNHCR warned" on Wednesday, the AFP/Daily Telegraph/Vancouver Sun reports. More than 12 million people in Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya, Djibouti and Uganda have been hit by severe drought and rising food prices, forcing thousands to leave their homes and seek assistance in already-overflowing refugee camps in Ethiopia and Kenya, the newspaper notes (Flood, 7/7).

Author and journalist Maryn McKenna in her "Superbug" blog on Wired.com examines U.S. spending on drug-resistant pathogens, including methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). She examines data presented by Eli Perencevich of the University of Iowa and colleagues at the World HAI Forum, which looked at how much of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases' budget went to the problem of drug-resistant diseases versus other infectious diseases. "They found the answer to be: Not very much," she writes.

"Responding to the growing threat of a humanitarian crisis in North Korea, the European Union announced on Monday that it will provide about $14.5 million in emergency aid to feed more than some 650,000 North Koreans," the New York Times reports (Castle/McDonald, 7/4).

A state district court has ordered programs essential to life, health and public safety to continue during the shutdown. A judge is now holding hearings and will make recommendations about which programs fall into this category.

The measure, which was signed into law Tuesday by the governor, will benefit -- say its backers -- between 200,000 and 300,000 workers. Its opponents argue the requirement will make the state less competitive. In related news, Denver voters could consider a similar measure on the November ballot.

"More than half of working women in the world, 600 million, are trapped in insecure jobs without legal protection, according to the first flagship report of the new agency U.N. Women. A similar number do not have even basic protection against domestic violence, it finds, while sexual assault has become a hallmark of modern conflict," the Guardian reports.

NPR's All Things Considered on Tuesday examined the efforts of the British company Oxitec to develop a genetically modified mosquito meant to wipe out wild populations of the insects, which carry potentially lethal diseases such as dengue.

Puerto Rico has reported its first case of cholera imported by a recent traveler to the island of Hispaniola, where a cholera outbreak began in October, the Associated Press/Washington Post reports.