New warnings of drought in Syria

From IRIN, a story about the United Nations issuing a new warning on a drought in Syria.

A top UN official warns that Syria's drought is affecting food security and has pushed 2-3 million people into “extreme poverty”.

During a mission to Syria which ended on 7 September, Olivier de Schutter, UN special rapporteur on the right to food, said 1.3 million people had been affected by the four-year drought, 800,000 of whom had had their livelihoods devastated.

“The situation is really bad,” said Selly Muzammil, spokesperson for the World Food Programme (WFP) in Syria.

In June the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Syria said the drought had ended but that inconsistent rainfall was causing crop failures. Other UN agencies say the drought is ongoing.

Schutter said four consecutive droughts had affected Syria since 2006, with the drought in 2007-2008 being particularly devastating. "The losses from these repeated droughts have been significant for the population in the northeastern part of the country, particularly in Al-Hasakeh, Deir Ezzor and Al-Raqqa.”

Small-scale farmers have been worst affected. Many farmers have not been able to cultivate enough food or earn enough money to feed their families. Herders have also lost 80-85 percent of their livestock since 2005, according to UN figures.

Thousands have left northeastern areas and live in informal settlements or camps close to Damascus. Experts warn, off the record, that the true figure of those living in “extreme poverty” could be higher than the 2-3 million estimate.

Wheat

The drought is also threatening food security. Whilst the government says it is self-sufficient in wheat - the primary strategic crop in Syria - production has not matched demand.

This year’s yield was 3.3 million tons, compared to demand for 3.8 million tons, according to government figures. Wheat has been imported.

“Syria has enough to stocks for the shortage at the moment. The problem is that poor families have had several years of bad crops so their resilience capacity is low. Many families now don't have access to credit, for example,” said Mario Zappacosta, an economist from FAO's trade and markets division.

The biggest challenge Syria is facing is altered weather conditions such as inconsistent rainfall, according to officials at the Ministry of Agriculture. Adversely affecting farmers, it is not clear whether the changes are natural fluctuations in the climate or permanent changes due to global warming.

Water sources have also been permanently affected. Farmers used wells to draw on groundwater resources because of a lack of rainfall. The situation is exacerbated by the inefficient use of water. Schutter said the dropping of groundwater tables was a “serious concern”.

The Syrian government and the UN have been handing out food to those affected and working to implement more efficient agricultural policies. Central planning is gradually being replaced by indicative planning with an agricultural support fund providing subsidies for certain strategic crops.

Earlier this month an irrigation project was launched in the lower Euphrates basin, near Deir Ezzor to reduce water drawn from groundwater reserves.

But Schutter warned that the Syrian drought appeal was not receiving enough money as aid had been politicized. Only 34 percent of the total funds requested had been received, according to the UN. One of the effects of this has been to limit WFP food parcels to 200,000 of the 300,000 people it had hoped to target during distribution in June.

Statement for next weeks MDG meeting leaked

The big United Nations meeting on the Millennium Development Goals is coming next week. President Obama and other world leaders will be attending to take stock of the progress of the Goals. One of the things these types of meetings always do is release a document or statement that everyone can agree on. That document was leaked to Reuters yesterday.

In the document expected to be ratified next week, the United Nations will collectively state that the MDGs are achievable by 2015. The set backs caused by the global recession did hurt progress, but the UN member nations believe they all can be met.

From Reuters, writer Louis Charbonneau unveils what is within the document.

The Millennium Development Goals can be achieved, including in the poorest countries, with renewed commitment, effective implementation, and intensified collective action by all (U.N.) member states and other relevant stakeholders," said the draft, which was obtained by Reuters on Thursday.

It says the economic and financial crisis represented a serious obstacle for the goals, which were agreed in 2000 and are aimed at halving poverty, slashing hunger, improving gender equality and improving access to health care and education.

"We are deeply concerned about the impact of the financial and economic crisis -- the worst since the Great Depression," the draft says. "It has reversed development gains in many developing countries and threatened to seriously undermine the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals by 2015."

All 192 U.N. member states, as well as international blocs like the European Union, African Union and organizations such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and others are expected to participate in the three-day summit.
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A spokesman for the international humanitarian aid organization Oxfam, Louis Belanger, complained that the draft document was thin on recommendations for specific actions or policy changes aimed at achieving the MDGs.

"Oxfam's main problem with this is that it's not action orientated," Belanger said. "There's little of the 'how' these commitments will be achieved."

UN to have a special session on food prices

The United Nations will hold a special session later this month to talk about food prices. The meetings are due to the unprecedented spike in wheat prices and the riots in Mozambique that followed. The UN hopes that the session can come up with ideas to avoid another food price crisis as was experienced in 2007 and 2008.

From CNN, we read more about this new spike in food prices.

FAO officials, food experts and government representatives are scheduled to meet in Rome on Sept. 24 to find ways to ease the price fluctuation affecting grain markets, U.N. officials said in a statement.

Studies show that wheat prices soared in August, the biggest monthly rise in almost a year, officials said. They want to prevent a food crisis like ones in 2007 and 2008 that sparked riots in several nations.

Russia's restricted sale of grains, resulting from this summer's persistent drought, caused wheat prices to go up by five percent in August, the U.N. agency said. Russia recently banned grain exports.

Higher sugar and oilseed prices also contributed to the international food price hike, FAO officials said.

In the meantime, calm has returned to Mozambique's capital of Maputo after rioters protesting higher food prices caused mayhem in the city. Ten people died, including two children, officials said. More than 400 were injured, Mozambique officials said.

Moving away from public schools in South Africa

The post-apartheid generation of South Africa has seen a massive failure of the nation's schools. Leaving those from black or rural neighborhoods uneducated and unable to take advantage of their new freedoms.

The poor schools are leading some parents to take it upon themselves to put their children in private schools. Many of the new private or sponsored schools come with unique ideas in education similar to some of the US charter schools.

From the New York Times, writer Celia Dugger gives us some examples of new methods of education South Africa.

As many of South Africa’s public schools have failed a post-apartheid generation of children from poor townships and rural areas, a budding movement of educators, philanthropists and desperate parents is increasingly searching for alternatives.

For a decade, banks and foundations here have sponsored promising township students to attend elite, mostly white schools. But now new private schools are springing up to serve poor and working-class black children, giving the still dominant public system some newfound competition and perhaps even devising models that will end up influencing it.

The 500 students at three schools known as Leap represent one approach. All of the students, including Gcobani, come from black townships. They are immersed in an educational environment that is reminiscent of some of the most successful American charter schools.

In another undertaking, civic leaders are trying to revive the rural mission schools that educated many of South Africa’s liberation heroes but were largely destroyed by apartheid-era laws that required the institutions to submit to a racist system’s dictates or surrender control to the state. Nelson Mandela’s alma mater, Healdtown, and the Inanda Seminary, South Africa’s first high school for African girls, founded by American missionaries in 1869, are among those to be restored.

And in a small platinum-rich dominion near Johannesburg, the king of the Bafokeng people, Leruo Tshekedi Molotlegi, has built a $72 million private school for 800 children, most of whom will be local boys and girls on scholarship.

But a growing number of families, even without philanthropic support and tired of what they see as unmotivated public school teachers, are scraping together money on their own to send their children to bare-bones private schools tucked away in abandoned factories, shopping centers, shacks and high-rises, a new study of rural and urban communities in three provinces found.

In fact, researchers discovered far more of these low-fee private schools than official statistics suggest and surprisingly noted that public school teachers dissatisfied with their own workplaces were among the parents of students in these schools. While national studies are needed to gauge the full scope of the phenomenon, the researchers said, the evidence suggests that such schools are increasingly popular.

“Some ask, ‘Why aren’t parents screaming about the appalling state of public education?’ ” said Ann Bernstein, executive director of the Johannesburg-based Center for Development and Enterprise, which conducted the study. “They’re moving with their feet.”

Leaked "land grab" report officially released

A couple of weeks ago we mentioned the leaked World Bank report on the land grabs of Africa. The report has now been officially released by the World Bank, as they decided to move up the release date due to the leak.

The so-called "land grabs" are when emerging countries such as China are buying up farmland from African nations to provide a lower cost food for their own people. This practice has drawn much criticism as it leaves Africa with even less land to feed themselves and less land for Africans to own.

From the IPS, writer Hilaire Avril provides some quotes from the report.

The World Bank report, titled "Rising Global Interest in Farmland. Can It Yield Sustainable and Equitable Benefits?" and released on Sep 8, cautions that "an astonishing lack of awareness of what is happening on the ground" exists -- even by the public sector institutions mandated to control this phenomenon.

It estimates that 2009 saw 45 million hectares of farmland deals going through and predicts that, "given commodity price volatility, growing human and environmental pressures, and worries about food security, this interest will increase, especially in the developing world".

At the beginning of Sep 2010, riots over steep increases in the price of bread left seven people dead and hundreds injured in Maputo, the capital of the southern African country Mozambique, sparking fears of another food crisis like the one that affected several African countries two years ago.

That same week, the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation announced that, "surging wheat prices drove international food prices up five percent (in Aug 2010) in the biggest month-on-month increase since November 2009."

Several huge farmland investment deals have been decried for bringing uncertain benefits to recipient countries, and sometime for leading to smallholders’ eviction from their land and adversely affecting local livelihoods.

The World Bank report reckons that "one of the highest development priorities in the world must be to improve smallholder agricultural productivity, especially in Africa".

But the report deems that "when done right, larger scale farming systems can also have a place as one of many tools to promote sustainable agricultural and rural development". It then proceeds to detail many conditions for these deals to benefit developing countries.

Dhaka the fastest growing city in the world

From the PBS Newshour, a profile on the growth of Dhaka, Bangladesh the fastest growing city in the world. People move to Dhaka hoping to find jobs, but instead remain poor in the rapidly growing slums.

Guest Voices: The Human Cost of Pakistan’s Disaster

Concern Worldwide continues to report from Pakistan as the people fight for their lives following the widespread flooding. Mubashir Ahmed, Assistant Country Director for Concern, visited a school that has turned into a distribution center.

Single mother of three Mina Gul was working as a maid before the floodwaters raged through her village of Sanamgari in the Charsadda district of Pakistan’s northwest. She was thankful, she told me, that the waters came in the night because otherwise she may not have been with her family to take them to safety.

Having scrambled to a high road near their home, she and her three sons watched in horror as the waters inundated her village until not even one house was left standing. Her eldest, Mahanoor, aged eight, recalled to me how he was moved to terror by the deafening sounds of houses collapsing in every direction around them.

I visited the local school that he and his brothers attend which has been repurposed as a Concern distribution point since day two of this disaster. So far, in this district, Concern has distributed basic household items and hygiene kits to 19,880 people. Mina is just one of a number of the extremely poor people that we are targeting.

She and others tell us that so far nobody but Concern has come here to help. Certainly I saw little sign of other assistance. Such is the scale of this calamity, the Government capacity is simply not able to cope, and KPK provincial authorities have been making regular appeals for more aid.

With meagre earnings of just $35 a month, her job as a maid has never allowed Mina to provide much for her children, but when all three of them fell ill with diarrhea, scabies and fever, she tells me that she grew desperate. Not long after her youngest, Akhtar Ali aged 5, was hospitalized in Peshawar for three days, she went to her employers to beg for help. And when they refused, she abandoned her job to care for her children full time.

Now she and her three sons live in the overcrowded two-bedroom home of her father-in-law, Faiz Mohammed. At night, they share the floor with 13 other family members. Mina is hopeful that she will find a new job, but so far the signs are not good. Faiz, a farm labourer, says he has also been out of work since the floods came. Not surprising, considering that the water completely submerged this land-dependent rural community drowning 70 percent of the livestock.

Sadly, Mina Gul’s case isn’t isolated. I met with several other people at the school, each one with their own story of devastation to tell. There was Imran Ullah (21), whose house was destroyed and was now living with 17 family members in one small house; Mohammad Jamil (35), a police officer, now volunteering with us at the school and sheltering eight family members in his home; Hasan Ferozshah (8), who had not received treatment for a serious eye infection that he developed after the floods; Nishtabahan (65), who was living with four of her sons, their wives and nine children and whose grandchildren were suffering from scabies and rashes; Shaqila Arshad (60) whose 20-member family were now living in tents; and Khushbna Bibi (70) whose two room house collapsed and who was now living with her children in a graveyard-turned-campsite along with 70 other families. The stories are endless and they are echoed across Pakistan for the estimated 20 million people who have been affected by this disaster.

For now, Concern is working with community partners to ensure there is access to clean water, daily household items and medical camps for the sick. More than 2 million people in this province of Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa (KPK) have been directly affected by the flooding. Concern’s partners estimate that at least 50,000 houses were completely destroyed and tens of thousands more were damaged. The immediate short-term needs are great and already we are in a race against time to rehabilitate water supply schemes to stem further outbreaks of disease.

But in the longer term, the support must pivot around the redevelopment of infrastructure so that communities like this one can regain a foothold on their livelihoods. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that approximately 500,000 pounds of wheat stock was washed away in Pakistan. Couple that with the fact that the main food source for the rural poor is wheat-based flat bread, and the true impact of this catastrophe becomes apparent.

The people of Pakistan are perilously close to an unimaginable food crisis. The mammoth 20 million affected and the lack of funding has meant that the emergency response has had to spread itself wide and thin. Water, sanitation and hygiene schemes will be essential in the coming months to prevent people, especially children, from dying from preventable waterborne diseases. But in the longer term, leveling and reclaiming land, rebuilding infrastructure and providing seed—necessary for the upcoming planting season—and livestock support will make the difference in minimizing the suffering which has already tested and plagued millions of families since the end of July.

Video: More mobile phone technologies to benefit the poor

Mobile phone use is growing rapidly, and this fact includes the poor people of the under-developed world. Techies are devising ways for the mobile phone technology to improve the live of those in poverty. Mobile banking is already proving to be a big benefit for the poor, as they no longer have to travel to a bank or wait for their money. Even simpler ideas like text messages with helpful health-care reminders are also being explored.

From the Washington Post, writer Cecilia Kang tells us about a couple of technologies being developed by the Grameen and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundations.

The Grameen Foundation, a Washington-based group known for helping women with the smallest of business loans, has two dozen people in a technology lab here developing mobile Internet applications to help spread its microfinance model. It's warning farmers in Uganda about banana crop rot through text messages and collecting data on spreadsheet applications on smartphones.

And the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has dedicated $12 million to help village farmers in Tanzania, Cameroon and Rwanda save money through electronic mobile phone deposits. It has launched a $10 million contest in Haiti to fund the best mobile banking ideas to channel earthquake relief to people who would otherwise stand in long lines at overwhelmed bank branches to collect cash. (Melinda Gates is on The Washington Post Co. board of directors.)

In all, 5 billion cellphones are in use globally and the most aggressive adoption is coming from low-income and poor communities, where the low cost of phones and the availability of cell networks even in remote areas has fueled the rapid growth. The innovations in development programs are relatively new, and it's too early to predict their success. Political instability and dictatorships make it hard to work with telecom service providers, and some central banks are reluctant to cooperate with companies that could take away their control over their citizens' finances.

Even so, cellphones have broken through bureaucracies and are reaching many who traditionally have been isolated from help. A basic phone that sends text messages can cost $20. A family or village can share one phone, with each person switching out cheap SIM memory cards for access. Kenya and Uganda have mobile broadband networks rivaling those in the United States and Europe that support the iPhone and BlackBerry.
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Cellphones are being adopted faster than even the most basic services such as routine medical care and schools. GSM World predicts there will be 1.7 billion cellphone users by 2012 without a bank account. The nonprofit Consultative Group to Assist the Poor estimates 150 million people receive regular social welfare payments but fewer than 25 percent of them have a bank account in which to deposit those funds, save and build assets. Much of that is because bank branches aren't available in rural areas and transaction costs are high.

As such, the Gates Foundation is trying to replicate a popular electronic banking program in Kenya in 19 other nations including Cameroon and Tanzania. Through M-PESA, a joint venture launched by a British development fund and Vodafone, a Kenyan farmer can deposit a few dollars cash with a local shop owner who converts the cash into electronic currency through a mobile text message sent to a city bank. A local telecom provider acts as the armored money vehicle, circulating the funds electronically, and a bank manages the deposits so that even the poorest can save money - a key to breaking out of poverty, aid workers say.

The anti-AIDS technology is outpacing the money

In the work to defeat AIDS, the technology seems to be outpacing the money. Anti-Retro-viral drugs can extend lives, but there is not enough money to get it to all of the people who are HIV-positive. Meanwhile, a study has found success in preventing the spread of AIDS with a microbial jell. While more tests need to be done before the jell is given to the public, the money in not available to get the further research underway.

From this New York Times article, one of our favorite writers Celia Dugger describes the problem that prevents the saving of lives.

Donors have not committed enough money for even one of the two studies needed to confirm a promising South African trial of the microbicide and get it into women’s hands. Only about $58 million of the $100 million needed for follow-up research has been pledged, according to Unaids, the United Nations AIDS agency. Experts say shifting global health priorities and tight finances in the West are making it hard to raise the rest.

Advocates say any delay could be deadly. Most of the 22 million people infected with H.I.V. in sub-Saharan Africa are women, and about a million women on the continent are infected each year. If subsequent studies find the gel effective, women could use it to protect themselves even when men refuse to use condoms.
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Dozens of scientists and public health experts at a conference here last week agreed on the research needed to speed the microbicide to widespread use. They called for two more trials in southern Africa and steps to promote and distribute the vaginal gel, infused with the antiviral drug tenofovir, through family planning programs.

The original study of the gel found that women who used it before and after sex were 39 percent less likely over all to contract H.I.V. than those who used a placebo. Those who used the gel most regularly cut their odds of infection by 54 percent.

Researchers have tried for two decades to find a microbicide to fight H.I.V. transmission. So far, the American and South African governments have come up with a vast majority of the additional research money, while Britain’s Department for International Development, a major supporter of microbicide research, has committed nothing.

Participants in the conference said an agency official said the British government’s priorities were shifting away from AIDS and toward maternal and child health, malaria and tuberculosis.

“H.I.V./AIDS is perceived to be very expensive research, and there’s a sentiment in the U.K. that it’s time to shift priorities,” said Tim Farley, a World Health Organization scientist who attended the conference.

Gates and Buffett sell giving to China

Already convincing many American billionaires to give away their wealth, William Buffet and Bill Gates are talking to the new rich in China. The rapid economic expansion China experienced over the last thirty years created many new billionaires.

The challenge for Gates and Buffett in selling the idea to their Chinese counterparts is that the idea of giving is unknown to many, and new to some. Also, China's billionaires are still young and still concentrating on building more wealth and may not be interested in philanthropy just yet.

From this Associated Press article that we found at the Las Vegas Sun we find out more about the new Gates and Buffett "venture" into China.

Reactions to Gates and Buffett's trip have been swift and varied: One prominent Chinese philanthropist quickly pledged his entire fortune to charity, while the head of a private foundation said Chinese businesses should be leery of emulating American-style charity donations before essential corporate standards such as worker's rights are improved.

Many have pointed to shortcomings in China's charity system, which critics say lacks transparency.

The discussion underscores what experts say is the relatively immature state of philanthropy in China, where in just three decades economic reforms pulled hundreds of millions out of poverty and created a generation of newly minted millionaires.

Gates and Buffett have been campaigning to convince other American billionaires to give most of their fortunes to charity and hope to spread the idea of generosity on a trip to China later this month. Their campaign includes a private dinner in Beijing with a group of wealthy Chinese _ and some are wary.

A "small number" of the more than 50 invited guests called to ask if they would be required to pledge a donation at the dinner, said Jing Zhang, press officer of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which is coordinating the Sept. 29 event. But Gates and Buffett just want to talk, Zhang said Tuesday.

Still, that hasn't stopped one of their guests, multimillionaire philanthropist Chen Guangbiao, from declaring in an open letter to Gates and Buffett that he would donate all of his fortune upon his death.

Mozambique reverses increase in bread prices

The government of Mozambique has made a move that could stop the rioting in the country. They decided to reverse the major increase in the price of bread that sparked the riots. Mozambique raised the price due to the higher prices for wheat.

So far, the story has only received a brief one paragraph mention in the New York Times, which is too small to copy a segment into our blog.

Rioting spreads in Mozambique

Late last week, Mozambique had rioting in the streets over increased prices. Bread prices increased over 30 percent as well as increased tariffs on electricity and water. While the riots began in the nations capital, it spread to other cities on Monday.

From the Voice of America, writer Peter Clottey reports on the uneasy calm in the Mozambique capital that may not last.

The head of news and current affairs at Mozambique television told VOA an uneasy calm has returned to the capital, Maputo, and surrounding areas hit last week by violent protests over rising prices that left at least 13 dead and hundreds injured.

Police dispersed demonstrators Monday in the northern town of Tete.

Simeao Pongoane said it will be difficult for the security agencies to arrest the allege organizers of the violent protests since he said they used disposable cell phones to call for the strike.

“The latest information we have here is that the situation is calm in Maputo and Matola, the two cities (that) were affected by riots last week. The only problem is that transport is very scarce. Only the public transports were in the streets trying to help people who are going to their places of work. And, the students are also having this problem because of (a) lack of transport,” he said.

Following a cabinet meeting last Friday, President Armando Guebuza’s government called for calm. Authorities have arrested more than 140 people in connection with last week’s unrest.

The protesters were unhappy about what they described as intolerably high food, water and electricity prices. Local media reports that a section of the population stayed home for fear of violence with police on high alert.

Authorities say they are still searching for the ringleaders who sent the first messages. Pongoane said the use of cell phones has made it difficult for police to arrest the organizers of the violent protests.

“It is very difficult to track down the people who initiated the text messages through mobile phones because, in Mozambique, you can get, or buy, from any outlet (phone chips) with untraceable numbers when you use it and then throw it away. So, I find it very difficult for them (police) to trace,” Pongoane said.

He further said that, apart from issuing a press statement calling for calm after a cabinet meeting last Friday, the government is yet to come up with solutions to resolve the concerns of the protesters.

Save The Children says 200,000 Tanzanian children died because of poverty

Save The Children is taking the government of Tanzania to task for not doing more to protect the lives of children. The charity says that 200,000 children have died there in only a decade. Save The Children says that the only reason the children died was because they were poor, and more could have been done to prevent the deaths.

From the UKs Daily Record, writer Lachlan Mackinnon gives us more stats behind the statement while she travels Tanzania.

More than half of the country's population are children and 54 per cent of them are malnourished.

Babies account for 30 per cent of child deaths.

While the overall under-fives mortality rate fell from 157 per 1000 in 1990 to 139 in 2000 and 104 in 2008, Save The Children say deaths among the poorest children have remained stubbornly high.

Ten years ago, world leaders agreed on a set of international targets to cut poverty - including a commitment to slash child deaths by 67 per cent by 2015.

But the east African country of Tanzania - like dozens of others - is off-track, an issue world leaders will discuss at a UN summit in New York later this month.

The Record travelled around Tanzania - home of the Serengeti national park - with Save The Children to inspect attempts to cut child deaths and to listen to kids' and mothers' often-heartbreaking concerns.

At Nyango District Hospital in Lindi, as in the rest of the country, pregnant women and under-fives are treated for free.

But the plight of Zinabu Jafari, 41, suggests the system is fundamentally flawed.

Her newborn twins weigh just 1.9kg and 2.5kg and are expected to die without specialist hospital treatment to increase their size.

Yet, for no apparent reason, Zinabu - whose husband left her when he found out she was having twins - has been told she will be discharged from hospital.

The gran-of-one, whose eldest child is 25 years old, said: "My first five children were born at home because there was no hospital.

"The only problem I had was with my fourth children when I bled for a month about five months into my pregnancy but I was OK after that.

"My seventh child was born seven years ago and I had no idea I was going to have twins this time.

"When the first one came out I was surprised my abdomen was still large and was amazed when another baby came out.

"I don't know what has happened to my husband, just that he is leaving.

"I am not sure about my children's future.

A great journey of repairing self, then repairing Haiti

During the Haiti earthquake, Bazelais Suy fell five stories when the stairwell he was on collapsed. The fall did significant damage to his spine and crushed his legs. Days later Suy was dug out of the rubble, but was not able to receive treatment for his injuries until 10 days after the earthquake. With the help of an American doctor, Suy was able to receive treatment at US hospitals for his injuries. Now, Suy has returned to Haiti to help the nation rebuild.

From this great story that we found at CBS 3 Philadelphia, Associated Press reporter Lindsey Tanner followed this incredible journey.

In the dark, Suy (Soo-'EE) drifted in and out of consciousness. He does not remember being pulled out and placed among bodies on the sidewalk.

Friends arrived and lifted Suy into a car, heading down bumpy streets, first to a public plaza several miles away where victims were being taken. His family found him there on the ground and took him to a hospital where conditions were filthy and the only treatment consisted of occasional painkillers. Eventually he was moved to a tent clinic outside Sacre Coeur Hospital in Port-au-Prince.

A doctor from an aid group asked Dr. Dan Ivankovich, a spinal specialist from Chicago, to check on Suy.

Ivankovich was incredulous. Under normal circumstances, patients with spinal-cord injuries would be immediately strapped to a backboard to immobilize the spine and avoid additional nerve damage. Most would then go straight to surgery.

Suy's rescuers had no choice but to move him, probably making the injury worse, Ivankovich said.

And 10 days had passed since the quake.

"I said, 'Are you out of your mind?'" Ivankovich recalled.

Ivankovich, an irreverent, 7-foot-tall surgeon used to treating poor patients from the inner city, had just arrived in Haiti with a medical team. Like his idol, Johnny Cash, the doctor wears black — from his leather cowboy hat and boots to gaudy onyx rings and black diamond ear studs.

It's an honor, he says, to help the downtrodden. And he shares that passion with his young patient.

Suy was born poor in southern Haiti and sent as a boy to live with an aunt in Port-au-Prince and attend school. He was one of the lucky ones. More than half the population lived in poverty even before the quake left more than 1 million homeless. About 40 percent of Haitian adults are illiterate, and almost half of Haitian children don't attend school.

Deeply religious, Suy loves his country but hates its poverty. A few years ago, he formed an advocacy group named GRRANOH, a French acronym meaning roughly "group for ideas, research and action for redirecting Haiti." Its volunteers have tutored orphans, fed the homeless, visited hospital patients and raised awareness about Haiti's needs.

"He doesn't have much but with the little he has, he wants to help people," said his girlfriend, Jeanna Volcy.

In the chaos of post-quake Haiti, Ivankovich was equipped to handle amputations and fractures, not spinal cord injuries. Nor was the damaged hospital in any position to host spinal surgery. Suy, meanwhile, had pressure sores on his back from lying prone for more than a week, and the risk of infection was grave.

When Ivankovich mentioned he would be going back to Chicago, the frightened young man pleaded with him.

"Take me with you," he cried, in halting English.

The doctor in black could not turn away. Ivankovich worked with U.S. authorities to help secure a humanitarian visa. Sixteen days after the quake, he flew to Chicago in an air ambulance. It was Suy's first trip out of Haiti.

The protests and activism for the next Millennium Development Goal summit

From IRIN, a story about the increase in activism and protests ahead of the UN Millennium Summit coming up later this month.

Activists are pulling out all the stops ahead of a development summit at UN headquarters on 20-22 September. Pro-aid and anti-poverty lobbyists are trying everything from giant letters to banging pans to raise awareness of the high-level event.

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) suffer from a lack of widespread public recognition, not least in the summit's host country, the US. Mobilizing popular support and influencing delegates will demand a range of online and offline techniques, according to advocacy specialists, some more quirky than others.

Human rights in general, and gender rights in particular, are at the heart of these calls. Amnesty International, for example, has a 3,865-strong online petition to put human rights at the centre of the fight against poverty. In addition, an enhanced focus on gender rights will likely be reflected in the revised “outcome document” to be signed by global leaders in reaffirming their commitment to the eight goals at the 10-year mark.

Another focus is the financial gaps: approximately US$20-$40 billion could be required annually until 2015 just to meet global targets on reducing child and maternal mortality rates, according to the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health.

Awareness-raising

An energized public serves a crucial role in holding political leaders accountable to meeting financial and other commitments to the MDGs, says Lysa John, campaign director for the civil society coalition of more than 160 partners, the Global Call to Action against Poverty (GCAP). It makes an even bigger difference when activists pressure leaders in their home countries.

Passionate rallies cannot always match the impact of a private meeting with top senior officials, however. Most NGOs and advocacy groups have been using this traditional campaign method in the past few months, said Elisa Peter, chief of the UN's non-governmental liaison office in New York.

But the term MDG is not an easy sell, advocacy workers say.

"We're trying to help people understand MDGs as global issues related to hunger, poverty, health, women and children and to use terms they can identify with," said Aaron Sherinian, spokesman for the UN Foundation charity.

According to a 2010 Gallup poll, 68 percent of Americans think the US and UN should be more focused on “issues” such as disease, poverty, education and health, Sherinian says.

When the UN Foundation unveils an “interactive” digital advertisement in Times Square at the beginning of September, it will be with the assumption that "people recognize the issue of the promises more than they recognize the term [MDG] itself", Sherinian explained. "They understand the issue and they get behind the issue."

The term "MDGs" is not widespread on the social change site BloggersUnite.com, where more than 50,000 bloggers log in monthly to post events related to health, climate change and education in developing countries.

"In the world I live in, the issues that the MDGs address are being talked about, but not in those exact terms," said BloggersUnite founder Tony Berkman. "We all have our own approaches to getting the word out about eradicating poverty."

Political will

As well as being little known, the investment and stamina required to maintain the goals in the face of public disinterest and public sector deficits needs a special type of commitment.

When Millennium Promise Alliance CEO John McArthur spoke at the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs on achieving the MDGs - the first hearing of its kind - in July, he lobbied in terms of domestic politics.

"The MDGs should be, but have not been, a strategic priority for the United States," he said in the hearing. "The President's recent national security strategy placed a strong emphasis on development in the poorest countries."

"For the US to incorporate the goals into its development policy and thinking is hugely important," McArthur later told IRIN.

Super-sized campaigns

During the June hearings, GCAP wrote a 1.8m high open letter to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, recommending a stronger human rights focus within the MDGs.

UN security stopped it from entering the Secretariat, but Ban's office heard about the roaming letter and invited GCAP organizers to a private meeting, pledging enhanced collaboration with civil society.

GCAP, with Oxfam, Amnesty and others, plans to continue its super-sized campaigning in September. Its partners are planning thousands of events, including a bell-ringing session in Indonesia and a gathering of homeless people to bang on pots and pans in Malaysia, during Stand Up, Take Action, Make Noise for the MDGs events from 17 to 19 September.

In Bhopal, India, university students will sign a compilation of songs about ending poverty. Activists in Italy will gather at various events to make a steady noise mimicking heart beats by pounding on their chests, drums and clapping their hands. Across the Philippines, people will partake in a massive church bell-ringing campaign on 19 September. More initiatives are being announced daily.

GCAP will also display giant signed charters from its networks across Asia, Africa, Latin America, Europe and the Middle East that joined in answering the question of “The World We Want [in] 2015”. Viewers at multiple New York sites can then supplement the charters and write their own expectations and demands for the summit.

"We want to make a noise around the world and it is intended to be a big one," said Rajiv Joshi, a GCAP organizer in New York.

If that noise is clear enough and uniformly pitched, it stands a strong chance of reverberating inside the General Assembly hall from 20 September. It remains to be seen if the activists make it past security with their giant paperwork or not.

UN says money to fight AIDS is falling

Another report on how the global recession has hurt funding for AIDS prevention comes today from the United Nations. The head of the UN-AIDS says that money to fight the disease has dropped for the first time in 15 years.

From the AFP article that we found at Google News, we find out more about the statement from UNAIDS.

"The world economic recession is pushing countries... to enforce austerity," UNAIDS chief Michel Sidibe said in Tokyo, calling on Japan to keep up its financial support to the public-private Global Fund.

The head of the United Nations agency has in recent days stressed the need for the international community to mobilize 10 billion dollars for universal access to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support.

"Governments and donors are second-guessing in terms of their budget and priorities," he told a Tokyo press conference. "For the first time in 15 years, we are seeing the global commitment beginning to falter."

Many patients, particularly in Africa, still struggle to receive expensive care that often requires skills of highly trained professionals, Sidibe said.

New test can give tuberculosis results in two hours

A new test for tubercolosis can bring results within two hours according to a new study. The test can also check for drug resistant forms of the disease and is faster than any other test available.

From Reuters, writer Kate Kelland tells us about the study results.

In a study in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), researchers said that when used on 1,730 patients with suspected TB and suspected drug-resistant TB, the Xpert MTB/RIF test successfully identified 98 percent of all cases.

It also identified 98 percent of patients with a form of TB resistant to rifampin, or rifampicin -- one of the most powerful TB drugs -- and achieved these results in less than two hours.

Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases described the test findings as "impressive" in terms of speed, accuracy and sensitivity.

"Within two hours, you can not only have a diagnosis, but you can also have a good idea of the range of drugs you can use," he told Reuters, adding that such capabilities were "unheard of" with current testing methods.

Doctors say current diagnostic testing for TB -- which involves microscopy in labs with trained experts and can take weeks -- has barely been improved in the last 125 years.

Tests for drug-resistant TB can take months and are notoriously insensitive, so new, more accurate tools to rapidly diagnose TB and its drug-resistant forms are urgently needed.

Seven dead from riots over bread prices in Mozambique

Mozambique is a country where 70 percent of the population is below the poverty line. So when food prices increase it really hurts, hurts enough to riot.

Seven people have been killed in rioting on the city streets on Maputo. Police are attempting to restore order, but rioters are telling each other to continue the protests.

From Reuters Alert Net, writer Charles Mangwiro tells us about the riots.

Streets in Maputo's city centre were eerily deserted after Wednesday's protests which saw seven people, including two children, killed.

In other parts of Maputo, witnesses said police opened fire on protestors in the impoverished suburb of Zimpeto but there were no immediate reports of deaths or injuries.

Schools in the capital were closed and many people remained at home to avoid the protests. In the city centre, where hundreds of protestors fought running battles with police on Wednesday, soldiers were clearing up burning barricades where shops were closed and no public transport ran.

Thousands of people angered by a 30 percent increase in the price of bread and higher electricity and water tariffs took to streets in protests which quickly turned violent.

"I opted to join the protests because life is very difficult with these hikes, the government has turned a deaf ear to our long grievances, they only need us during election time," said Teofilo Pedro, a resident of the industrial surbub of Matola on Maputo's outskirts.

New study warns of drug costs to those in poverty

A new study says that people who are slightly above the poverty line could be pulled below it simply by buying common medicines. Drugs to control asthma or diabetes can be very expensive for people who earn little in under-developed or emerging countries. The authors of the study call for more measures to make drugs affordable or free to those in or near poverty.

From Reuters, writer Kate Kelland unpacks the study for us.

Laurens Niens' team at Erasmus University Rotterdam analyzed the number of people who would be pushed below an income level of $1.25 or $2 a day -- poverty indicators used by the World Bank -- by paying for four important, widely used medicines.

The Dutch researchers whose work was published in the Public Library of Science (PLoS) Medicine journal on Tuesday said their findings showed that greater effort is needed to encourage the use of cheaper generic drugs in poor countries and to ensure more medicines are made available through the public sector.

The drugs studied were a salbutamol inhaler, used for the management of asthma, glibenclamide, a common diabetes drug, atenolol, which belongs to a drug class commonly known as beta-blockers and is used to treat high blood pressure, and amoxicillin, a broad spectrum antibiotic.
...

In Yemen, for example, where seven percent of people live on less than $1.25 a day, buying branded glibenclamide -- sold as Daonil by Sanofi-Aventis -- would impoverish another 22 percent, but buying the cheapest generic equivalent would only push another 3 percent below the poverty line.

Delivering condoms by camel-back

From IRIN, a story about a unique way of bringing condoms to remote Kenyan nomads.

In the remote and rural district of Samburu, northern Kenya, where paved roads are scarce and motorised transport hard to come by, reaching the mostly pastoralist and nomadic inhabitants with HIV/AIDS services requires an unusual approach.

John Lokolale, 21, a Samburu Moran (warrior), said he did not know what the word condom meant until recently. "Now I know a condom because I have seen it," he told IRIN/PlusNews. "These days, when I get a girl I tell her I will use a condom because I have a stock in my house. They brought it here with a camel, and I kept many for myself."

The Nomadic Communities Trust (NCT), a community-based health services organization, started using camels to reach the Samburu people with mobile clinics in 2006.

"We realized we had to be innovative ... and we looked around; we are glad camels have come in handy in [delivering] not only condoms but also drugs and other reproductive health services," said Rose Kimanzi, an NCT field coordinator.

The camel clinics offer family planning services, antenatal care, palliative care, HIV testing and condoms. NCT has trained 45 local people to provide information about HIV and condoms and they have so far reached more than 68,000 people.

According to the 2007 Kenya AIDS Indicator Survey, Samburu district has an HIV prevalence of 6.1 percent, slightly lower than the national average of 7.4 percent.

"When people come to places where we have set up camp they can receive all the services," said Kimanzi. "We have witnessed comparatively wide acceptance of condom use and family planning services."

Michael Lol'ngojine, a community health worker trained by the NCT project to provide HIV counselling and testing services in Samburu, said people in the area had gradually changed their attitudes.

"When I started working here [five years ago], you couldn't mention the word condom, or even tell people about family planning; telling them to test for HIV was like an insult," he told IRIN/PlusNews.

"Today I am happy because they now seek services ... When they see the camels, they come along because they appreciate the need to test and they appreciate the need to use condoms," Lol'ngojine said.

"Here people still believe in traditional medicines, and if you don't test them for HIV ... even those who are ailing from HIV-related diseases will just seek herbal treatment."

Kimanzi noted that high levels of poverty, illiteracy and cultural practices like polygamy and early marriage have led to high levels of HIV infection among the Samburu and other nomadic communities in the region, where around 60 percent of the people live on less than a dollar a day.

"Poverty makes many parents marry off their daughters early, putting them at risk [of HIV]. Many of these young girls are married off to men who are already in polygamous unions, and when you mix that with illiteracy, then the situation becomes difficult."

Besides these cultural practices, "Tribal conflicts amongst the Samburu and Pokot [a rival pastoralist group] have hindered the provision of health services, including HIV/AIDS services," Kimanzi said. The two communities carry out frequent cattle raids against each other.

The government struggled to bring HIV/AIDS services to the people, said Dofa Abdi, Samburu District HIV/AIDS and STI (sexually transmitted infection) Coordinator.

"We appreciate any efforts to offer HIV prevention services to nomadic communities here because they do not visit health facilities, nor is it easy to get to them since most government services are static."