More than 17 million more hungry people could have been reached by US-funded programmes in 2010 if ‘tied aid’ restrictions were lifted, according to report.
Lucius Fox
Chief Executive Officer of Wayne Enterprises
An alliance of 200 US aid groups has written to the head of the CIA to protest against its use of a doctor to help track Osama bin Laden, linking the agency’s ploy to the polio crisis in Pakistan.
The country recorded the highest number of polio cases in the world last year, a health catastrophe that threatens to spiral out of control.
In July the Guardian revealed that the CIA used a Pakistani doctor, Shakil Afridi, in the hunt for Bin Laden. In the weeks before the 3 May operation to kill Bin Laden, Afridi was instructed to set up a fake vaccination scheme in the town of Abbottabad, in order to gain entry to the house where it was suspected that the al-Qaida chief was living, and extract DNA samples from his family members.
North Korea agreed to suspend nuclear weapons tests and uranium enrichment and allow international inspectors to verify and monitor activities at its main reactor, the North’s official news agency and the State Department announced on Wednesday, as part of a deal that included an American pledge to ship food aid to the isolated, impoverished nation.
Reblogged from doctorswithoutborders|77 notes
“While international attention focuses on Myanmar, a health crisis in the country looms large. An estimated 85,000 people infected with HIV in Myanmar are not receiving lifesaving treatment. This is an improvement on previous years with new momentum in the country to tackle the crisis. However, the recent retreat of the Global Fund to fight AIDS, TB and Malaria threatens to undo improvements, leaving tens of thousands of people living with HIV and TB without treatment and a large scale crisis unchecked.”
—Joe Belliveau, an operations manager at Doctors Without Borders.
This article originally appeared in Thailand’s The Nation newspaper.
Myanmar 2011 © Veronique Terrasse/MSF Meeting with patients at an MSF clinic in southern Myanmar.
About 70 percent of the 19-20 million tons it produces annually comes from the western state of Gujarat. You may recall that independence leader Mahatma Gandhi rallied the people of India around the boycott of salt production, one of the largest industries in the country.
Families that earn their income through the sale of salt spend eight months of the year in the salt pans, overseeing the process of salt crystallization and working under harsh conditions, far away from their villages and sometimes their families. The workers told me that men usually come to the salt pans a couple of months earlier than their wives and children.
In a written debate, university professors John McArthur and James Radner make the case for, and against, an inherent “duty” of developed countries to provide food aid to those suffering from famine across the drought-stricken Horn of Africa. McArthur, former deputy director of the UN Millennium Project, noting that the cost of such lifesaving aid works out to $7.70 per person per year in the developed world. He writes, “If we do not think that human lives are worth $7.70 of our resources, then we would not just be failing to meet our obligations to humanity; we would be failing to meet our obligations to promote a secure and stable world — and thereby to protect our own countries, our communities, our families and ourselves.”
On Wednesday, Mr. Gates will be at the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland, where he plans to exhort wealthy donors—especially governments—to keep funding a range of crucial projects in the developing world, from tuberculosis drugs and antimalaria bed nets to maternal care and vaccines. His plans to make his case by showcasing ideas, backed by his foundation, that have helped cost-effectively tackle problems in global health.
Reblogged from doctorswithoutborders|134 notes
MSF general director Christopher Stokes. MSF is suspending operations in detention centers in Misrata, Libya, because detainees are being tortured and denied urgent medical care. (via doctorswithoutborders)
“
Patients were brought to us in the middle of interrogation for medical care, in order to make them fit for further interrogation. This is unacceptable. Our role is to provide medical care to war casualties and sick detainees, not to repeatedly treat the same patients between torture sessions.
”
Two major medical centres run by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in the Somali capital have closed.
Reblogged from doctorswithoutborders|125 notes
Civilians continue to bear the brunt of extreme inter-communal violence in Jonglei state in South Sudan. A recurring characteristic of the attacks is their extreme violence. This woman was treated by MSF in Pibor said she had fled to the bush with her husband, children, and 15 other family members. After running for eleven hours, they were found by a group of men who shot at them. Her son was also treated by MSF for a bullet wound to the chest that remarkably did not kill him.
More on the situation in South Sudan.
(via doctorswithoutborders)
“
We scattered. They shot me in my thigh and my baby was hanging on my back. I tried to hide in the high grass but they found me because my baby was crying. They started beating my daughter until she kept quiet. They left us behind thinking we were dead.
”
1 note