The Beatrice Tierney Clinic of Uganda

Medical care in Uganda has been free for all since 2001, but that doesn't mean that the care is great. Government health care is chronically under funded and under staffed. Do much so that patients are never sure if they can receive the treatment and medicine they need.

From the Inter Press Service we learn of one small private medical clinic that operates in the Ugandan village of Bumwalukani. Writer Wambi Michael says that even the poorest residents don't mind paying the small fee to get medical care from the Beatrice Tierney Clinic.

The Beatrice Tierney Clinic was founded by the Foundation for International Medical Relief for Children as a sick bay for pupils at Arlington Academy of Hope. It not only provides health care to students of the school but to the surrounding community.

The villagers have taken advantage of its existence to access treatment for their families and don’t mind paying the user fee of two thousand shillings per visit per adult. Children are treated for free.

"That is not a lot of money. Because you can use more than that if you were to visit Bududa hospital," Kutosi said.

Residents of Bumwalukani are also fortunate because the clinic has a volunteer medical doctor working alongside the nurses. A government clinic is usually run by an enrolled nurse who works with a midwife, two nursing assistants and a health assistant.

Wilson Mangoye, a health outreach coordinator in Bumwalukani, and a regular user of the clinic, says the presence of qualified doctor has attracted patients from neighbouring districts who are in desperate search of better medical care.

"Sometimes we get patients from the regional referral hospital coming here for treatment because they are assured of the medicine," he said.

Sam Bulukwa, 43, traveled about 10 kilometres from Bubiita sub-county for treatment.

Bulukwa said he did so because the services at local government hospitals were deplorable, especially for the poor who cannot bribe health workers. Services in government facilities are supposed to be free, but in many cases health workers extort money from patients desperate for services.

"The workers in government hospitals have no passion to serve; you cannot be respected as patients. Even cleaners can shout at you but you cannot say anything because you never know they could (put you in touch with) someone who can treat you," said Bulukwa.

La Nina blamed for causing the East African drought

While East Africa is suffering through its worst drought in sixty years many are blaming climate change as the cause. However, the scientific consensus is that the drought is actually caused by the effects of La Nina. Scientists do admit that climate change may have strengthened the La Nina pattern of pulling wet weather away from Africa and into southern Asia instead.

From this IRIN story that we found at the Guardian, we find the opinions of two scientists who have worked in the Horn of Africa.

Philip Thornton, a senior scientist who works part-time with the Nairobi-based International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and the University of Edinburgh-based Institute of Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences, has done some pioneering work on projections of climate-change impact in eastern and southern Africa.

He told IRIN via email that projections of the climate change impact in east Africa were "a problem" as the authoritative inter-governmental panel on climate change's (the IPCC) fourth assessment report "indicated that there was good consensus among the climate models that rainfall was likely to increase during the current century.

"But work by other climate scientists since then suggests that ... certain Indian Ocean effects in east Africa may not actually occur.

"Some people think that east Africa is drying, and has dried over recent years; currently there is no hard, general evidence of this, and it is very difficult as yet to see where the statistical trends of rainfall in the region are heading, but these will of course become apparent in time."

The IPCC's fifth assessment report will be released in 2014.

Jan de Leeuw is the operating project leader in the vulnerability and sustainability in pastoral and agro-pastoral systems within ILRI's people, livestock and environment theme. He points out that this La Niña event is one of the strongest since the 1970s. But he says La Niña, along with El Niño, appear in cycles that "we don't understand".

What we do know is that La Niña started to develop in August 2010. It cools surface waters in the central and eastern Pacific Ocean, while allowing warmer water to build in the eastern Pacific. "The pool of warm water in the east intensifies rains in Australia, the Philippines, and Indonesia. Domino-style, this pattern also increases the intensity of westerly winds over the Indian Ocean, pulling moisture away from east Africa toward Indonesia and Australia. The result? Drought over most of east Africa and floods and lush vegetation in Australia and other parts of Southeast Asia," according to the US government's National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

A team armed with Polio vaccines travel door to door in India

Polio is still endemic in India but it is almost in remission. That remission is due to a polio vaccination effort jointly operated by the World Health Organization. A team of vaccinators go from house to house, neighborhood to neighborhood to make sure every child receives the vaccine. It is the complete opposite of the Western world where the parents take the children to the doctor for the shot.

From the Pulitzer Center, writer Helen Branswell followed a team of vaccinators on their journey.

In recent years Uttar Pradesh—or UP as it is commonly known—and the neighboring state of Bihar have been the source of all the polioviruses that have crippled children in India. As such, they are considered high risk areas, marked for more frequent vaccination rounds than states where polio appears to have been quelled.

Nearly every month the effort is mounted. An army of vaccinators tries to find every child five and younger. Teams visit each house, shanty and tent on their routes, dripping orange polio vaccine into grimacing mouths. In some homes, they meet parental resistance. To those homes they make repeated calls, trying to work through the fear, dispel the misinformation.

The team marks its progress on house doors in chalk. The markings look like hieroglyphics to the uninformed, but to those on Team Polio, there is much to be learned from the chalk scratchings.

Dr. Suhasini More—her surname rhymes with foray—is the World Health Organization’s polio team leader for the Agra sub-region, into which Firozabad falls. She deciphers the chalk marks on one door across from an open lot where water has pooled and garbage festers.

“T means team number. Team Number 7. X is because maybe one or two or all the children are not vaccinated due to any reason. Maybe he’s not at home. Maybe he’s sick. And this,” says More, pointing to an arrow that punctuates the markings, “is the direction the team in going.”

An X can also mean a parent has refused to let a child be vaccinated. That has traditionally been a problem among some in UP’s sizeable Muslim minority. But More says the number of families that reject vaccine for their children has been declining.

Muslim women vaccinators are meant to help overcome what remains of this resistance. In some cases, a community leader—a person of influence—also trails around with the team, a presence meant to persuade those wary of the vaccine that it’s OK from a religious point of view.
...

In 2001, most homes did not have electricity, running water or indoor bathrooms; 63 percent got their water from a communal hand pump, 67 percent lit their houses by kerosene and 68 percent did not have indoor latrines.

Some improvements have occurred over the past five years, but sanitation here is still very poor, Vishwakarma says. That lack of infrastructure helps explain why polio has been so hard to root out here. Polioviruses travel from one person to the next via what’s known as the fecal-oral route. In places where people defecate in the open or dump feces into gutters or drains, there are many ways for polio viruses to leach into water and make their way into the guts of the vulnerable—especially during the monsoon season, which is now underway.

IRC says one in ten children are in danger of starvation at the Horn of Africa

The International Red Cross has issued a statement on what the organization has observed from the dire situation in the Horn of Africa. The Red Cross says one out every ten children living in the drought affected area are in danger of starving to death. The emergency level drought is gripping the countries of Kenya, Somalia, Ethiopia and others.

From Reuters Alert Net, writer Stephanie Nebehay relays the information from the Red Cross.

"Levels of malnutrition have reached a new peak and are currently the highest in the world," the ICRC said in a statement.

The independent aid agency, one of very few with access to Somalia's worst-hit areas, said that even in the Bay and Lower Shabelle regions, the traditional breadbaskets, nearly 11 percent of children under five had severe acute malnutrition.

This meant they were at risk of starving to death. Rates were believed to be significantly higher in other areas.

"In some parts of Somalia, the number of children with severe acute malnutrition has almost doubled since March."

The disturbing findings were based on data from 39 clinics and 18 therapeutic feeding centres run by the Somali Red Crescent with its support. The ICRC said it was opening 10 new feeding centres in Bakool, Gedo and the Afgoye corridor.
...

Somalia has had no effective central government for two decades, worsening the impact of recurring droughts. Islamist al Shabaab rebels have refused to allow food aid to be delivered in areas under their control, saying it encourages dependency.

The world body is looking into security guarantees to return to southern Somalia following an unexpected announcement by al Shabaab last week that it was lifting its ban. [ID:nN1E765198]

The World Food Programme (WFP), in a statement on Wednesday, said it could return to the south "if conditions allow and if the necessary security clearance from the United Nations is granted".

If you feel moved to donate to the Red Cross and their work of feeding the drought stricken Horn of Africa you can do so by going to this link.

Majority of Congo Republic residents lack access to water

It has one of the largest reserves of water in the African continent. Still, over 50 million residents of the Democratic Republic of Congo are without access to potable water.

From the Inter Press Service, writer Charles M. Mushizi attended a water conference for Southern Africa that looked into the issue.

"The statistics from certain countries - like the DRC - are not up to date. The numbers are approximate; those from other countries are only partial. And all the numbers do not cover the same period; that's what makes the global statistics presented less than reliable," Sedeke told IPS on the sidelines of the Fifth SADC Water Dialogue, held in the Swazi capital, Mbabane, on Jun. 28 and 29.

"If we refer just to some of the large countries in the region, like the DRC where more than 75 percent of the population lacked access to potable water at the end of 2010, one can readily see how the reality for SADC is worse than the statistics show," he added.

"More than 60 percent of the population without access to water in DRC is made up of women and children; to put it another way, more than 35 million Congolese women and children do not have access to potable water," Cyrille Masamba, another Congolese delegate in Mbabane, told IPS.

According to a report published in March 2011 by the United Nations Environment Programme, the DRC possesses half of the water resources in Africa, but more than 50 million Congolese do not have access to water.
...

"It's in this sense that each state has a national policy to finance access to water as well as to guide sustainable management of water in the context of climate change," said Jonathan Kampata, a Zambian expert in water finance. According to him, "water is becoming a big asset for adaptation to greenhouse effects and in the struggle against food insecurity through agriculture."

Migration is not "out of control" says the OECD

A new study from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development says that the recent global recession slowed migration. The amount of people leaving poor or developing countries into rich nations fell by seven percent during 2009. The OECD says that the results of the study prove that rich nations can not say that migration is "out of control" as we often hear in the US.

From the Guardian, writer Angelique Chrisafis unpacks the study details.

The inflow of permanent immigrants to 24 OECD countries, including founder EU members, the US, Canada and Australia, fell by 7% in 2009. Much of this decline was the result of a 36% drop in "free-movement" migration within the EU between 2007 and 2009. There was a drop in migration from new EU member countries, notably Romania, Poland and Bulgaria. The number of temporary workers also fell sharply, particularly seasonal low-skilled agricultural workers and fruit-pickers. Seasonal migration dropped by 13% between 2008 and 2009, largely in Spain where people hit by the economic downturn took poorly paid, low-skilled work such as salad-picking, once only done by immigrants.

The growing economic power of China and India had led to more people emigrating for work. Chinese citizens are now the number one migrants to OECD countries, accounting for around 9% of all arrivals. They tended to move to Japan, Korea or Australia and much less to the UK. Indian citizens were the third biggest group of migrants, butmany came to the UK.

The number of asylum-seekers remained stable and relatively low compared with the early part of the decade or the historical highs of the early to mid-1990s. Iraq, Serbia and Afghanistan are the biggest countries of origin. But South Africa was the main destination for asylum-seekers, with many fleeing Zimbabwe, Malawi and Ethiopia.

However, the report warned that the world economic crisis had had a "disproportionate effect" on immigrants who now faced problems of long-term unemployment, particularly low- and medium-skilled immigrant men, as well as youths in their late teens and early 20s. This was particularly so in countries where immigration had soared in recent years, namely Ireland and Spain. In Spain in the last quarter of 2010, unemployment among foreigners was 29%, against 18% among the native Spanish.

Drought in Horn of Africa one step away from becoming famine

The United Nations says that the drought in the Horn of Africa has now reached an emergency stage. 10 million people are suffering through the drought which is very close to becoming classified as a famine. The UN is asking for emergency donations of money from their donor nations to bring food and aid into the region.

Reuters writer Astrid Zweynert gives us the latest details on the Eastern African drought.

Aid agency CARE on Monday launched an appeal for $25 million to scale up its response to the growing crisis. The agency said it is already giving emergency assistance to nearly one million people in the region.

"The current crisis builds upon years of consecutive droughts and deteriorating conditions," Barbara Jackson, CARE International’s humanitarian director, said in a statement.

"As livestock have died en masse, pastoralists are losing their main assets and means to survive," Jackson said. "They have nothing left to feed their families."

MASSIVE NEED FOR FUNDS

Donor countries have started mobilising assistance for the drought survivors, with Britain pledging 38 million pounds ($61 million dollars) in food aid to Ethiopia.

Swedish International Development Corporation Minister Gunilla Carlsson announced a 30 million Swedish krona ($4.7 million) contribution to the U.N. Refugee Agency’s (UNHCR) work in the region, while Denmark said it will contribute 64 million Danish krone ($12 million) in humanitarian aid to Somalia to help ease the impact of the drought.

The United States, meantime, has deployed a disaster assistance response team, based in Kenya and Ethiopia, to help the U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the World Food Programme (WFP) and other aid agencies there coordinate emergency aid operations.
...

U.N. refugee chief Antonio Guterres spent Sunday visiting the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya, where an estimated 1,300 people arrive every day, many of them Somalis, in the already overcrowed camp, thought to be the biggest in the world with a population of some 380,000.

Somali refugees seeking shelter in Kenya from extreme drought and hunger are the poorest of the poor and the most vulnerable in the world, Guterres said.

Increasing numbers of malnourished young children are dying after trekking for weeks to receive emergency aid in Kenya in what has become the "worst humanitarian disaster in the world", the U.N. refugee chief said.

"We're in a crisis right now," Allison Oman, UNHCR's senior regional nutrition and food security officer told reporters at the camp. "We need extraordinary measures to help."

Sex workers organize for rights in Nepal

Sex workers in Nepal are beginning to organize to demand new rights. They hope that they will be recognized as an official occupation in the soon to be ratified constitution. This will give sex workers protection so they are no longer treated as criminals for doing their work. Most of the time the Nepalese women will go into such an occupation because they have no where else to turn.

From the Inter Press Service, writer Sudeshna Sarkar describes the effort.

Every time Bijaya Dhakal goes out to meet people and tell them what she does for a living, the simple task becomes an act of courage requiring nerves of steel. Dhakal is the founder of Nepal’s first and only organisation of women sex workers now trying to make the state and society listen to a community long hushed by poverty and discrimination.

A widow who had not completed school, the 35-year-old mother of two became a sex worker after struggling to raise her family on the meagre wages she earned in a factory. For almost eight years, she led a double life, working in the capital Kathmandu and returning to her village sporadically, with her family believing she worked for a non-government organisation.

"Sex workers suffer at the hands of the police and, at times, their customers who beat them up or rob them. Yet they can’t complain because the moment people learn what they do, a change comes over them," Dhakal says.

"Landlords throw them out, and even doctors and nurses at the hospitals loathe touching them for fear of contracting some disease. I began to wonder one day, how long can we stay hidden? If we continue to hide, how will our needs and demands be met?"

Six years ago, Nepal’s growing gay rights movement inspired Dhakal to cast aside the veil of anonymity and start Jagriti Mahila Sangh. Jagriti means awakening, and Dhakal hopes it will catalyse sex workers hidden in the 75 districts of Nepal to unite for a change in their lives.

"I saw all these male sex workers, transgenders, and people living with HIV/AIDS declaring their status in public and demanding their right to be treated like any other citizen," she says, sitting in Jagriti’s office in Kathmandu, a three-room apartment that did not have a single stick of furniture when it opened with seven registered members.

"They gave me courage. Besides, I was tired of speaking through intermediaries who often failed to convey correctly to the state authorities and donors what we wanted," she added.

Today, Jagriti Mahila Sangh has grown into Jagriti Mahila Mahasangh, a federation with 26 associates spanning 23 districts, mostly in eastern Nepal and the southern Terai plains bordering India. Its major donors are the U.N. Development Programme, the British government’s Department for International Development, and Save the Children.

Dhakal feels even the donors are uneasy. "They prefer working with the HIV/AIDS community over us," she says. "They think, being uneducated, we won’t be able to manage our projects and also, what we do for a living puts them off."

How does a country escape the poverty trap?

Without much fanfare, 28 different countries have escaped the poverty trap. These countries were once counted as a least developed country by the World Bank, but are now classified as a middle-income. So the question is how did this happen, Was it through development aid or through foreign investment?

From the Guardian, a commentary co-written by Charles Kenny from the Center for Global Development and Andy Sumner from the Institute of Development Studies takes a stab at answering the question.

So what's behind all of this sudden income growth? Is it a story about aid? One prominent Zambian, Dambisa Moyo, has written of her country that "a direct consequence of the aid-driven interventions has been a dramatic descent into poverty. Whereas prior to the 1970s, most economic indicators had been on an upward trajectory, a decade later Zambia lay in economic ruin". In the 1980s, aid to Zambia averaged about 14% of GNI. In the 2000s, a decade of strong growth, the same proportion was 17%. If Zambia's ruin in the 1980s was the result of aid, is Zambia's graduation to middle-income status in the new millennium a sign that aid now works really well?

Of course both the ideas that previous stagnation was all the fault of aid, or current growth was all the result, are ridiculous. The price of copper (Zambia's major export) was depressed in the 1980s and saw its price rocket in the middle of the last decade as China and India's economies grew and demand for the metal soared.

But growth among low-income countries in Africa and elsewhere isn't just limited to big mineral exporters. And the continent is fast drawing in more investment. Foreign direct investment to Africa is projected to rise to $150bn by 2015, reports the Africa Attractiveness Survey (that's more than the total global aid budget) – and domestic resources are being mobilised at a faster rate, too, as the Commission for Africa 2010 report discussed.

Even diamond-producing Ghana, which declared itself 63% richer at the end of last year than previously thought, didn't suggest the newfound riches were the result of mineral exports. Instead, the recalculation was driven by the fact the country's services sector was a lot bigger than previously calculated. Part of that will reflect the incredible success of the telecoms sector - 75% of the country's population are mobile subscribers. And, of course, the expansion of telecoms is a worldwide phenomenon. So a lot of the growth we are seeing in poor countries is broad-based, not just reliant on the current commodity boom – which is good news for the future.

Of course there's much to do to translate this growth into better and faster poverty reduction. Looking at the progress data for the millennium development goals (MDGs) for Ghana and Zambia there's nowhere near the kind of progress you would hope to see on income poverty. Twenty years of growth in Ghana has reduced the number of people living on $1.25 or less from just over 7 million to just under 7 million – and inequality (as measured by the Gini coefficient) rose significantly. However, in both Ghana and Zambia, the number of children in primary school has climbed along with literacy rates, and infant mortality has fallen. Even if they're not on track to meet the MDGs, quality of life is getting much better.

Haiti refused malaria vaccinations says drug CEO

A news story breaking this morning gives us another reason to question governance in Haiti. The CEO of a Dutch drug company that makes a malaria vaccine says his offers to give free vaccinations were refused by Haiti. The allegations are made by Ronald Brus the CEO of Crucell, a drug company that makes the malaria vaccine Dukarol

From Top News, writer Davel Wilkins unpacks the details.

He further added that the refused donation could have saved the life of 5,500 by limiting the increase of an epidemic that caused more than 363,000 illnesses, triggering the call for $175m to take action.

The debate also highlighted the fact that what are the main reasons behind the cause of Haiti’s cholera outbreak and how the international institutions can help in removing this problem.

Number of current reports argued that the virus was transported by the UN peacekeepers.

Video: America's Dirty Secret: Child Sex Trafficking

From the Associated Press, a video about child sex trafficking in the United States.

Audio: Brazil's President Vows To End Poverty For Millions

From NPR, a story about Brazil's goal to lift everyone within its borders out of poverty.

Slavery is still a part of today's economy

The practice of human trafficking has given us more slavery today than at any time in the history of the world. The victims of trafficking are often given a general proposition to leave their home, only to find the terms of the deal changed once they arrive to the new country. The people trafficked then have to work off any agreement made with their controllers, often through sex trade or domestic work.

From the Inter Press Service, writer Simba Russeau gives us more details on this growing problem.

"For many, the simplicity of the transaction when dealing with illegal recruiters is more attractive," Pardis Mahdavi, author of ‘Gridlock: Labour, Migration and Human Trafficking’ told IPS. "If governments could put into place a system that allows the legal channels for migration to be easier, it could limit the number of workers migrating under informal middlemen."

Slavery, which is a system where people are treated as property and forced to work, is very much a part of today’s global economy. It rivals and in some regions eclipses the international drug trade.

There are nearly 27 million slaves worldwide, generating 1.3 billion dollars in annual profits, according to conservative estimates. Some estimates show a world slave population as high as 200 million, with the majority held under debt bondage.

Considered a new form of slavery, human trafficking is one of the fastest growing criminal industries in the world. The United Nations (UN) estimates that nearly three million people are trafficked annually.

"Global human trafficking is fueled by the insatiable demand for unmediated access to other human beings - to their labour, their personhood, to all that makes each of us unique, and all of us generic," Eileen Scully, author of ‘Pre-Cold War Traffic in Sex Labor’ told IPS.

"The demand in EU countries for ‘exotic women’, for example, is not merely a demand for non-local women, or for women from cultures that supposedly do not stigmatise prostitution. This demand is, rather, for ‘trafficked women’ and ‘trafficked children’, meaning individuals who have been manoeuvered into untenable, inescapable situations, where having once said yes to the general proposition, they are unable to say no to the particulars when later presented."

The new International Labour Organisation’s (ILO) Convention on Domestic Workers adopted in June aims to ensure that women - who constitute nearly 50 percent of the global migrant population – are treated as human beings.

"When male migrant workers come to work in construction or other service and industry sectors in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states, they are protected under the labour law. Even if they don’t have full rights their work is recognised as work under the law, which is not the case for domestic workers (in the Arab region)," Simel Esim, gender specialist at the ILO's Regional Office for the Arab States told IPS.

A difficult start for South Sudan

South Sudan becomes their own independent country today. There is sure to be celebrations throughout the new country today, but South Sudan will have a very troubling start. There is still uncertainty over where the broader between north and south will lie, an important water and grazing area is sure to be fought over by the two sides. It also appears that the North has taken up ethnic cleansing again.

From the magazine Guernica, writer Jina Moore interviews Rebecca Hamilton who has had a long history of involvement in Sudan. Hamilton worked for the International Crimes Tribunal while the court convicted country’s president, Omar al-Bashir convicted of war crimes. She currently reports on Sudan for the Washington Post.

Guernica: South Sudan voted in January to secede from the country. The formal division is scheduled for July 9, but there’s been new violence the last few weeks in Abyei.

Rebecca Hamilton: And now in a place called South Kordofan.

Guernica: What has been happening there, and will it jeopardize the split?

Rebecca Hamilton: It’s best to think of these as two things—they’re related, but there’s different dynamics going on with each of them. A key difference is Abyei is contested territory. We still do not know whether Abyei is going to belong to the new country of South Sudan or effectively the new country of Sudan, the northern part. That was supposed to be decided by a referendum in January; that referendum never happened, so it was being dealt with through political negotiations. All of that went out of the window when government seized the territory on May 21.

Guernica: Why is Abyei so sought after?

Rebecca Hamilton: There’s a huge misconception that it’s all about the oil, and the truth is there’s actually not much oil left in Abyei. The misperception arose because when the peace agreement was signed in 2005, Abyei accounted for a quarter of Sudan’s oil production. Since then, the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague defined major oil fields to lie outside Abyei. They’re in the north now, not even up for grabs, and they account for one percent of the oil in Sudan. The idea that it’s “oil-rich Abyei” is out of date.

The area is incredibly fertile and really important in terms of water. The permanent residents are the Ngok Dinka, who think Abyei should be southern. They’re more likely to be farmers. The Misseriya are a nomadic group that travels down from the north each year. There’s a river—the Ngok Dinka call it the Kiir, the Misseriya call it Bahr al-Arab—that’s a consistent source of water through the dry season. That river in Abyei is pretty crucial for their livelihoods. They feel if Abyei goes to the south, that they won’t be able to graze their livestock.

There have been promises by the south for grazing rights, but there is still so much mistrust between the two sides. During the civil war, the Sudanese government armed the Misseriya nomads as proxy. Even though both groups had coexisted quite well prior to the conflict, it all become much more difficult as a consequence.

The south really wants Abyei; they have a core constituency who reside in the area who believe that Abyei belongs to the south. There are a number of those sons of Abyei in high positions of government in South Sudan, so it’s pretty hard for South Sudan to just walk away. What’s been amazing over last few weeks is that the southern government hasn’t retaliated over Abyei, not because it hasn’t been debated fiercely, but because it seems like the greater good to hold on until July 9, get independence, be a sovereign state, and then be on more solid ground.

Guernica: That strategy implies the division will go forward no matter what?

Rebecca Hamilton: Absolutely. If South Sudan will become the world’s newest nation on July 9, for me, is not the question. The question is whether the fighting and the insecurity along the border areas is going to be so severe that it makes both the north and the south ultimately impossible to govern.

Guernica: Where does the violence in South Korodfan, which neighbors Abyei, fit into all this?

Rebecca Hamilton: Southern Kordofan is not a disputed territory. It is, and will remain, in the north, where the Nuba Mountains are. People believe there was a genocide there in 1990s. The Nuba, who are northerners, fought with the south in the north-south war. But they have their own individual interests, and they will remain in the north after the south splits. [Sudanese President Omar Hassan] Bashir said he wanted all of these former southern fighters to be disarmed by June, and when that didn’t happen, or when there was an effort at forced disarmament, we got into this situation.

There have been bombs dropping for ten days, humanitarian access has been barred, journalists who tried to get in [to Southern Kordofan] were beaten and turned away at checkpoints. In all the interviews I’ve been doing, the phone calls I’ve gotten at three in the morning, people are saying the Nuba are being systematically hunted down.

Guernica: Ethnic cleansing?

Rebecca Hamilton: Right.

Microcredit banks applaud possible changes to regulation in India

The microcredit industry in India is applauding the draft of a bill that could give new oversight to the industry. The good news has even seen the stock price of microcredit giant SKS microfinance rise up in the last couple of days.

The draft calls for microcredit to be regulated under the central reserve bank instead of individual states. Currently the state of Andrea Pradesh has tight restrictions against microcredit with laws that treat responsible lenders no better that predatory moneylenders.

From the Wall Street Journal's LiveMint, writers Remya Nair and Dinesh Unnikrishnan detail the pending bill.

The Microfinance Institutions (Development and Regulation) Bill gives more powers to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to regulate microlenders. It will cover all MFIs, including the smaller ones. MFIs give tiny loans to poor borrowers at around 24% interest. The Bill has to be approved by the cabinet and Parliament before it becomes law.

The industry welcomed the draft, saying it offers more clarity to the future of India’s Rs.20,000 crore microlending sector. The Bill, which has been posted on the finance ministry website for public comment, says MFIs registered with the apex bank won’t be treated as moneylenders, thereby keeping them out of the purview of the Andhra Pradesh Micro Finance Institutions (Regulation of Money Lending) Act, 2010.

“This (the new draft Bill) covers all types of MFIs, including the smaller companies, which gives confidence to the sector,” said Vijay Mahajan, president of lobby group Microfinance Institutions Network. “The regulations have been drafted in line with the recommendations of Malegam committee, but go well beyond that to provide comfort to the sector. It is a new generation Bill.”

More than a quarter of the industry is concentrated in Andhra Pradesh, which promulgated a law in October restricting operations of microlenders. This led to a drastic rise in bad loans as borrowers stopped repaying debt. Banks in turn stopped lending to MFIs. The state law, which had been preceded by an ordinance, followed reports of coercion in recovering loans that allegedly led to suicides.

Early this year, RBI issued regulations to govern MFIs operating as non-banking financial companies, based on the recommendations of an expert committee headed by noted chartered accountant Y.H. Malegam. The new rules capped the interest rate MFIs can charge at 26% and made a minimum two-year tenure mandatory for all loans above Rs.15,000.

World population to reach Seven Billion in October

The world will hit a milestone this October as the total population of our planet will reach 7 billion for the first time. If population trends continue, the world will reach 8 billion by the year 2025. This presents an enormous challenge for us all. Economies and food supplies must continue to increase in order to fulfill the ever growing need.

From the Inter Press Service, UN beat writer Talif Deen takes a look at some of the trends behind the ever expanding population.

The world's five most populous countries are China (1.3 billion), India (1.2 billion), the United States (310.2 million), Indonesia (242.9 million) and Brazil (201.1 million).

A new study titled "Africa's Demographic Multiplication", released last month and commissioned by the Washington-based Globalist Research Center, points out that Africa's population has more than tripled during the second half of the 20th century, growing from 230 million to 811 million.

As a result, Africa has become more populous than Europe. Nigeria, Africa's most populous country at 158 million, is expected to grow to 730 million by century's end, making it larger than Europe's projected population of 675 million.

Nigeria is currently the only African country with a population exceeding 100 million.

But 10 other countries in the African continent are expected to join that club before the close of the century: the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Niger, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.

Jose Miguel Guzman, chief of the UNFPA's Population and Development Branch, told IPS that globally, the population growth rate is not as high as it has been in the past.

Fertility decline in most countries of the world has contributed to a decline in population growth rates.

"But if we take into consideration least developed countries (LDCs) or most of the sub-Saharan countries, the situation is quite different," Guzman said.

In most of these countries, he said, fertility is still high, and the rate of growth is also high.

In some cases, it is as high as three percent, which implies that the population in these areas will double in about 20 to 25 years.

The date for the eight billion population milestone is projected now to be 2025, he predicted.

Latest MDG report shows uneven improvement

The United Nations has issued their latest progress report on meeting the Millennium Development Goals. The report is showing that improvement has been made on reaching the goals, but that the success has been unequal. The number of people below the poverty line is falling to a brand new low, this is despite the struggles of the recent global recession and our current record high food prices.

From the Guardian, writer Mark Tran sums up the UN report.

The overall poverty rate is expected to fall below 15% – well below the 23% target set in the millennium development goals (MDGs) – by 2015, fulfilling the target of the first MDG of halving between 1990 and 2015 the proportion of people living on less than $1 day. The gains come despite the economic and financial crisis of 2008 that began in the US and Europe.

That the world remains on track is due to the momentum of growth in the developing world. In absolute numbers, the number of people in developing countries in extreme poverty (living on less than $1.25 a day) is projected to fall below 900 million, according the UN's annual report card of regional progress towards the eight MDGs.

East Asia continues to record the sharpest reduction in poverty, particularly in China and India, where the number of people living in extreme poverty in both countries fell by about 455 million between 1990 and 2005, and where 320 million more people are expected to join their ranks by 2015. The UN MDG report said projections for sub-Saharan Africa are slightly more upbeat than previously estimated, and the extreme poverty rate in the region is expected to fall below 36%.

Despite significant reductions in extreme poverty, the world will find it difficult to eradicate hunger, however, which is another target of MDG 1. The persistence of hunger is forcing policymakers to address problems such as access to food and high food prices. The Food and Agriculture Organisation has been asked to undertake a comprehensive review to see what policies could lead to a reduction in the proportion of people going hungry, which has plateaued at 16%.

Sub-Saharan Africa chalked up the best record for improvement in primary school enrolment, but the world is far from achieving universal primary education, MDG 2. Burundi, Madagascar, Rwanda, Samoa, São Tomé and Principe, Togo and Tanzania are among the countries that have achieved, or are nearing the goal of universal primary education. The abolition of school fees has contributed to progress in many of these countries, the UN said.

Taking the cooperative spirit of microcredit a step further

One of the best qualities microcredit was the improved relationship between the lender and borrower compared to traditional banking. That relationship that was based on working together to improve the borrower's life and to later repay the loan seem to have gotten lost somewhere. Now, there is an effort developing to take the cooperative and communal spirit that was once featured in microcredit a step further.

Again, the Inter Press Service brings us a story of a microcredit cooperative that is a part of this effort. A group of women in Bangladesh. have pooled their savings together first, then borrow against it later. The women work together to make sure the loans a payed back, otherwise their savings are gone. Writer Naimul Haq tells us of the Pally Bikash Kendra cooperative.

Unlike the traditional microfinance arrangements where credit comes from external sources or development partners, the local NGO Pally Bikash Kendra (PBK) has taken a different approach where beneficiaries themselves generate and save money to help small businesses survive.

Called "Self-Help", the programme was launched four-and-a-half years ago in the wetlands of Mithamoin in Kishoreganj district in central Bangladesh, less than 150 kms from the capital Dhaka. Today, the 317 women’s groups operating in the area have a combined fund of roughly 15 million taka or over 200,000 dollars.

Twenty-eight-year-old Bishan Chkraborti is one of hundreds of beneficiaries who virtually had nothing at the beginning but, after joining the "samity" or group, now runs her own business raising cygnets and selling adult swans at a local market.

Four years ago, her eight-year-old son had to drop out of school, since she could not afford the boat fare to take him to the only primary school in the 200-hectare swampland. "I had no income as my disabled husband could not work. We lived in a tiny one-room bamboo-shed home," said Chkraborti, who comes from Puran Borgadia village.

Now she has a bigger house with a tin roof, mud floor and bamboo fence. She also grows vegetables and sells them to locals with a slight profit margin. Her son is also back in school.

The Self-Help programme, designed for very poor women, is a simple system based on the discipline of raising and saving money, creating small funds to be loaned out to beneficiaries at negligible interest rates.

Every samity is made up of about 15 women – mostly the landless, widows, beggars and divorced – who deposit 10 taka (13 cents) every month when they meet for discussions to approve fresh loan applications. In those meetings, they also discuss what to do with the loan money, how to use it efficiently, and other social issues that affect women like education and health.

"We don’t have any defaulters," said a proud and confident Padabi Rani Das. "If a member fails, we all fail. We don’t let anyone fail as we have a system of helping members overcome their difficulties."

Video: Millions risk hunger in Horn of Africa

From Reuters Alert Net, this video gives us the latest on the drought gripping the Horn of Africa.

You will need a current version of Flash to view this content.

Click here to download the latest Flash player.

Latest cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe kills 10 children

A cholera outbreak occurs nearly every year during Zimbabwe's rainy season. Yet the rains are really not to blame. The lack of sanitary water and sewer systems throughout the country are the culprit.

During the rainy season, flooded waters rise up to reach areas where people had to relieve themselves. The waste is then carried downstream where it begins to infect people with cholera.

In the latest outbreak for Zimbabwe, 10 children have died from cholera. 200 children have been admitted for treatment at local hospitals. From Kenya's Daily Nation, we read this report on the latest round of cholera.

At least 10 children have died from a suspected diarrhoea outbreak which has affected over 200 children in Zimbabwe's second city of Bulawayo over the past month, a state daily said Wednesday.

"More than 200 children suffering from the disease were admitted during the month of June," The Herald newspaper quoted an official at the government-run Mpilo Hospital as saying.

"Ten children have died. Technicians at our laboratories are analysing stools to determine the cause of the disease."

An official at a private hospital in the city said at least three children had died of diarrhoea at the hospital.