Chandler Smith

ADDITIONAL FUNDS NEEDED FOR HAITI  – The Washington Post parses out the current situation for Haiti, including the good and the bad.  Part of the good: Donor nations have forgiven around 80 percent of Haiti’s outstanding debt, large commitments have been made and anti-corruption measures are being put in place.  And the bad: It remains unclear to what extent non-governmental aid organizations in Haiti are prepared to coordinate their efforts with the government and the interim reconstruction agency.  The rainy season is coming, which further complicates the situation.

CALL FOR ADVOCATES ON BEHALF OF REFUGEES IN HAITI, AROUND WORLD – Millions of Haitians and people around the world are desperate for food, water, shelter and protection from abuse and exploitation. New President of Refugees International, former Member of Congress and former chairman of the Motion Picture Association of America calls for America to act as moral leader on this issue.

DEADLY, NEGLECTED DISEASES NEED TO BE ADDRESSED – An opinion piece in Kenya’s Daily Nation draws attention to the need to address deadly diseases such as sleeping sickness, elephantiasis, leprosy, helminthiasis, trachoma, leishmaniasis, Buruli ulcers, schistomiaisis and yaws, which continue to be a deadly threat for many people living in Africa.  Africa continues to pay a handsome price for neglecting these diseases that are silently stealing the strides made in economic growth. The diseases occur in remote areas and affect the poor, a scenario made worse by inaccessibility or unavailability of healthcare for timely and effective treatment.

RACIAL TENSIONS RISE IN SOUTH AFRICA – In South Africa, a judge has ruled that a song once sung by anti-apartheid activists as a rallying cry against the white minority regime is now “unconstitutional and unlawful.” Anyone found singing “Kill the Boer,” the judge said, could face charges of incitement to murder. The ruling has touched off a bitter racial debate in a country still grappling with its racist past.

Washington Post: In Kenya, ethnic distrust is as deep as the machete scars
A striking depiction of the residual wounds in Kenya from the post-election violence.

AllAfrica.com: Uganda: Aids Patients’ Agony As Global Fund’s U.S.$4.2 Million Yet to Be Released
A story from an East African paper provides an on-the-ground perspective on how difficulty accessing funds for AIDS programs is affecting Ugandans.

Financial Times: Private sector goes into development finance
The first tentative moves by western banks and fund managers into microfinance are gathering momentum. Most of the big banks have set up divisions that provide financial services to low-income clients in emerging markets, particularly to those who have or wish to set up businesses. The infrastructure involved is burdensome and the returns uncertain, but this does not dim the belief of many in the sector that microfinance will outperform in the future.

NYTimes: Goodbye, Copenhagen
A New York Times blog gathers a colorful collection of opinions on Copenhagen from bloggers and climate change thinkers.

COP15: Climate-Change Conference
But although many will remember the Copenhagen climate summit as an unmitigated disaster, that’s too simple an assessment. For all its limitations, however, the Copenhagen Accord is the first real step to fighting climate change in the 21st century. The real value of Copenhagen of the summit may lie in what it teaches us about dealing with climate change — and much more. TIME outlines five outcomes from the summit.

Wall Street Journal: Time for a Climate Change Plan B
Lord Lawson, former U.K. chancellor of the exchequer in the Thatcher government, suggests that the time has come to abandon the “Kyoto-style folly that reached its apotheosis in Copenhagen last week, and move to plan B.” Plan B, he says, is that, “first and foremost, we must do what mankind has always done, and adapt to whatever changes in temperature may in the future arise…Beyond adaptation, plan B should involve a relatively modest, increased government investment in technological research and development—in energy, in adaptation and in geoengineering.”

Washington Post–U.S. pledges billions; China says climate pact is doubtful:
Secretary Clinton announced that the United Station would help build a $100 billion annual fund by 2020 to help poor countries cope with climate change, but said its commitment depended on whether the nations gathered here could reach a substantive pact that includes “transparency” on tracking emissions cuts.

Reuters: EU woos emerging nations for climate alliancel:
European leaders are courting some African, Asian and Latin American nations to counter the clout of China and the United States at the climate change talks in Copenhagen, French officials said. French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his EU allies were wary of letting Beijing present itself as a spokesman for emerging economies, they said. This would be based on China’s ties with the G77 bloc of developing nations which is chaired by Sudan, an ally of Beijing.

Reuters: United States pledges $2.7 bln for Kenya HIV battlel:
The United States committed $2.7 billion on Wednesday to help fight HIV infection in Kenya where more than a million people are living with the disease. The pledge is part of the largest U.S. foreign aid programme devoted to a single disease — the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief — and has been lauded as a bright spot of former President George W. Bush’s tenure.

Politico.com: Shah to meet with Coburn (Laura Rozen):
In what’s seen as one of the few remaining steps before he could come up for a Senate confirmation vote, USAID chief nominee Rajiv Shah is due to meet with Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) tomorrow. Coburn — like Shah, a physician — and one of the most fiscally conservative members of Congress, proudly highlights on his Senate website a 2006 medical journal article describing him as the “host of several of the key hearings exploring USAID’s regrettable failings.”

BBC News: Millions at risk as East Africa rains fail, Oxfam says:
Rains across swathes of East Africa have failed for the sixth year in a row, leaving millions of people facing hardship, Oxfam has warned. The charity says Somalia’s drought is the worst for 20 years, and November rainfall was less than 5% of normal in parts of Kenya and Ethiopia.

Washington Post: Poor nations stall talks on global warming
Global warming talks were suspended for hours Monday because of a walkout by developing countries, as rich and poor nations struggled to reconcile the divisions that have dominated international climate policy for decades. The conference’s Danish chairman, Connie Hedegaard, resolved the issue by establishing a series of small working groups where ministers could tackle key issues such as global emissions targets and money to help poor countries cope with climate change. Tim Wirth, president of the U.N. Foundation, said the delay would not undermine the possibility of a deal, which is supposed to be finalized Friday when more than 110 world leaders convene in Copenhagen.

Wall Street Journal: Time for a Smarter Approach to Global Warming
Bjorn Lomberg, director of the think tank Copenhagen Consensus Center, looks at the cost of climate change, and what those costs could mean for developing countries that face much more immediate problems. “There is no question that global warming will have a significant impact on already existing problems such as malaria, malnutrition, and water shortages. But this doesn’t mean the best way to solve them is to cut carbon emissions,” says. Instead, Mr. Lomberg suggests that the global community should radically increase spending on research and development for green energy.

Politico.com: Africa cool on Obama in Copenhagen
President Barack Obama proclaimed he had “the blood of Africa within me” during his emotional trip to Ghana this summer. But to African climate negotiators in Copenhagen, he’s just another U.S. president pushing a preachy, penurious agenda.

ABC News: Africa’s Culture War: The Fight Over Uganda’s Anti-Gay Bill
ABC’s Dana Hughes reports from Nairobi on the proposed anti-homosexuality legislation in Uganda. She examines its connection, if any, to the U.S. evangelical movement and its potential to reverse progress on HIV/AIDS awareness and treatment.

Associated Press: Malaria cases likely half in third of countries
Malaria cases appear to have been slashed by half in more than a third of countries battling the disease following a renewed push by the United Nations to eradicate it, the World Health Organization said Tuesday. In a new global report on malaria, the U.N. health agency said it was cautiously optimistic the mosquito-borne disease’s spread is slowing, even though its information is patchy and based largely on modeling.

New York Times: AIDS Prevention Gel Fails in Trial, Researchers Say
A microbicide to protect women against infection has failed in the largest trial of its kind, researchers said Monday. That failure, according to some, was the last nail in the coffin for this type of microbicide — gels that could prevent the virus from setting in once entering the body. Attention is now turning to gels and rings that release constant doses of antiretroviral drugs to kill the virus or stop it from reproducing.