Archives: Morning Breakouts

"India and Brazil launched a trade dispute against the European Union and the Netherlands on Wednesday, saying their seizures of generic drugs were hurting healthcare in poor countries and disrupting international trade," Reuters reports. "India said the repeated seizures were based on allegations of the infringement of intellectual property rights in the country of transit, even though the generic drugs in question were legal in their countries of origin and destination," according to the news service.

The budget estimate in Indiana for how much the federal health reform law could cost the state is causing political ripples in the state, leading one lawmaker to suggest dropping the program altogether.

A recent report (.pdf) by Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) and Oxfam International warns "that the global campaign to vaccinate children in poor countries is being hampered by high prices and is facing an acute funding crisis," BMJ News reports.

TIME reports on the recent efforts of a "young Florida businessman" who started a project "to collect a million shirts and send them to poor people in Africa." The project elicited a range of responses from people in the aid world who have been debating "the best and worst ways to deliver charity, or whether to give at all." The magazine examines these different perspectives.

On Wednesday, ahead of a meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon addressed several topics in a "speech warning that leaders of the G8 and G20 countries should not use global economic and financial difficulties as 'an excuse' to neglect previous pledges of billions of dollars for the world's poor

"Arab countries need to invest some $144 billion in agriculture over the next 20 years to meet the food demands of the growing population, an Arab agricultural organization has said," the Media Line/All Headline News reports in a piece that examines the contributing factors to gaps in food security in the region.

Sens. Blanche Lincoln and some other lawmakers are facing still fights to retain their party's nomination for their own seats as they spend time defending their records and health care positions from the left.

The Hill reports that House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, D-Wis., said Wednesday that groups pressing for $14 billion more in funding for education, health and labor proposals will likely be disappointed because the budget proposed by the president already faces cuts of about $3.5 billion in those areas.

"The new healthcare law doesn't include more spending and less deficit reduction than previously reported, an Obama administration official said Wednesday," The Hill reports.