Briefs
FrontLines - April 2010
Congress Votes to
Relieve Haiti Debt
WASHINGTON— The House
of Representatives voted
April 14 and sent to President
Barack Obama a bill that
instructs U.S. directors at the
International Monetary Fund
and other global development
institutions to work to cancel
Haiti’s $828 million debt, the
Associated Press reported.
Haiti lost an estimated
230,000 lives in a Jan. 12
earthquake.
Congress is also considering
$2.8 billion in new aid.
The United Nations recently
hosted a donors’ conference
where nearly 50 nations
pledged about $9.9 billion in
assistance.
The House bill also recommends
that for the next five
years, aid to Haiti be provided
as grants rather than loans.
“There are many of us
who look at this earthquake
as opportunity,” said Rep.
Maxine Waters (D., Calif.),
sponsor of the measure. “We
believe that there is now a
real commitment by the
world community to come to
the aid of Haiti.”
Maternal Deaths
Show Sharp
Decline
The number of women
dying during pregnancy and
childbirth has fallen sharply
in recent years—from
526,000 in 1980 to 342,000
in 2008—according to a new
report published in The
Lancet and reported in The
New York Times April 13.
“The overall message, for
the first time in a generation,
is one of persistent and welcome
progress,” wrote the
journal’s editor, Dr. Richard
Horton.
The reduction in mortality
came from lower pregnancy
rates, higher income,
improved nutrition, access to
health care, women’s education,
and the increasing
availability of “skilled attendants”—
people with some
medical training—to help
women give birth.
USAID is a major supporter
of training birth attendants or
midwives in many countries.
Economic growth in large
countries like India and China
also helped reduce the death rates.
The new report cited by the
Lancet article comes from the
University of Washington and
the University of Queensland in
Brisbane, Australia, and was
paid for by the Bill & Melinda
Gates Foundation.
The researchers analyzed
maternal mortality in 181 countries
from 1980 to 2008.
Sub-Saharan Africa has the
highest maternal death rates. Six
countries accounted for more than
half of all the maternal deaths in
2008: India, Nigeria, Pakistan,
Afghanistan, Ethiopia, and the
Democratic Republic of Congo.
Michelle Obama
Makes Surprise Visit
to Haiti
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti—
First lady Michelle Obama made
a surprise visit to Haiti April 13
and when she spoke to workers
at the United Nations, the
crowds broke into applause and
even tears at several points.
Jill Biden, wife of Vice
President Joe Biden, joined her
on the trip.
“It’s a reminder that Haiti is
still in crisis, and that rebuilding
is going to take a long time,”
Krista Riddley, the director of
humanitarian policy at Oxfam
America, told a reporter.
While many celebrities have
visited Haiti since the earthquake,
the high profile of the U.S. first
lady raised hopes that promises of
billions in aid made at a U.N.
international donors’ conference
on March 31 would come true. A
million Haitians remain homeless.
Obama and Biden met Haitian
President René Préval and they
visited a children’s center that
tends to quake victims. The
Associated Press reported that
Obama danced and clapped with
the children, and the women sat
down to do some arts-and-crafts.
“It’s powerful. The devastation
is definitely powerful,”
Obama was quoted as saying
after flying in a U.S. army helicopter
over the destruction of the
capital, Port-au-Prince.
The surprise visit was the
first solo international trip by
the first lady.
Vests Fail to Explode
in Afghan Attack
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan—
Two suicide attackers were shot
dead March 17 as they attempted
to enter the compound of a U.S.-
linked aid organization in southern
Afghanistan, Agence
France-Presse reported.
The bombers were wearing
explosives-packed vests but they
failed to explode during
a firefight with guards at the
gates of International Relief
& Development (IRD) in
Lashkar Gah.
Lashkar Gah, the capital of
Helmand province, is 12 miles
away from a major U.S.-led
offensive in Marja testing a new
counter-insurgency strategy
aimed at wiping out the Taliban
and drug-trafficking cartels.
IRD carries out projects for
USAID helping farmers market
their products, improving food
security, and other agriculturerelated
projects.
Banderas Named
Anti-poverty
Ambassador
UNITED NATIONS—Spanish
actor Antonio Banderas has
been named a U.N. Goodwill
Ambassador for the fight against
poverty, the U.N. Development
Program announced March 17.
In his new role as an advocate
for the poor, Banderas will set
his sights on the Millennium
Development Goals, a set of
eight globally agreed targets that
seek to halve world poverty by
2015 by combating hunger, disease,
illiteracy, environmental
degradation, and discrimination
against women.
“Poverty robs us of our
potential as a people, preventing
us from being all that we can
be,” Banderas said in a statement.
He will work to spur
action at all levels of society
with a particular focus on Africa
and Latin America.
UNDP Administrator Helen
Clark said she looks forward to
Banderas raising awareness
globally on issues related to
combating poverty.
Toilet Use Increases
But Sanitation Still
a Risk
A report by international
health agencies released March 15
says that more people are using
toilets instead of the unsanitary
practice of defecating in open
fields and other places—a major
cause of spreading disease.
The World Health
Organization and the U.N.
Children’s Fund said in the
report that open defecation is
declining even though about
1.1 billion still practice it, The
New York Times said.
The percentage of the world
population who do not use
latrines or toilets decreased to
17 percent in 2008 from 25 percent
in 1990. But constant population
growth and movement
into crowded urban slums mean
that the absolute number has
grown by 36 million people.
Africa has the fewest toilets
but is also very rural. The problem
is at its worst in India, Pakistan,
Nepal, and Afghanistan,
where the rate is estimated at 44
percent. In many slums, where
shanties are pressed together for
miles on end, with no water
pipes between them, and drinking
water sold from passing
carts, millions are forced to
squat along railroad tracks, or to
use bits of vacant land.
Sudan and
Ex-rebels Accept
Election Results
KHARTOUM, Sudan—The
ruling National Congress Party
in Sudan and former rebels in
the south of Africa’s largest
country agreed April 20 to
accept the results of elections
held the previous week, according
to Agence France-Presse.
Second Vice President Ali
Osman Taha, a member of
President Omar al-Beshir’s
NCP, consented to abide by
electoral commission decisions
at talks with Salva Kiir,
head of the southern former
rebel group Sudan People’s
Liberation Movement.
“We agreed to accept the
results as announced by the
National Election Commission
and to respect [its] decisions,”
Taha said in a statement carried
by state television.
It was Sudan’s first multiparty
electoral contest since
1986, and 16 million registered
voters cast ballots for president
and legislative and local representatives.
Southerners also
voted for the leader of their
autonomous government. .
★
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