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The Senate's foreign aid fight - Los Angeles Times
Note to congressional Republicans: Playing games with your own president's popular foreign aid programs, which enjoy bipartisan support and are helping to repair the United States' tattered international reputation, is not the pathway to electoral success in November.
Seven GOP senators have been blocking progress on a reauthorization bill for the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, which may be President Bush's proudest legacy. The bill sets aside $50 billion over five years to combat AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria in developing countries; it passed the House in April by nearly a 3-1 margin and was expected to sail through the Senate. But the record-setting price tag of the disease-fighting effort caused some conservatives to balk.
A flurry of negotiations this week seems to have satisfied some of the holdouts, but there was still enough opposition as of Thursday to keep it off the Senate floor. If it doesn't get through before the Senate adjourns today for its July recess, an important opportunity will have been lost.
Bush heads to Hokkaido, Japan, on July 7 for the Group of 8 summit, where foreign aid commitments will be a key topic of discussion. Passage of the AIDS bill would give him strong leverage to pressure other members of the club of wealthy nations to open their pocketbooks a little wider. The United States can't eradicate AIDS and the other deadly scourges by itself even with the $50-billion commitment, and some countries aren't doing their share.
Unfortunately, the AIDS initiative isn't the only crucial foreign aid program hitting a wall in the Senate.
Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) recently amended a war supplemental bill to cut $525 million from Bush's Millennium Challenge Corp. (about a third of its annual budget) and redirect the money toward emergency food aid in Myanmar and aid for Iraqi refugees. Millennium Challenge is a bold approach to foreign aid, targeted at creating important economy-building infrastructure in poor countries. Slashing its budget would punish nations that have worked very hard to open their societies and fight corruption. To devote the money to short-term food aid instead would be like taking away a man's fishing pole and handing him a fish.
Neither of these efforts is likely to succeed, but the pointless delays they're causing aren't helping the U.S. image abroad -- nor the GOP's image in the eyes of American voters.
Note to congressional Republicans: Playing games with your own president's popular foreign aid programs, which enjoy bipartisan suppor... more -
Food crisis could destroy progress in Africa
LONDON, England (AP) -- Rising global food prices threaten to destroy years of economic progress in Africa and drive 100 million people into poverty, a high-profile international panel said Monday.
Real progress in Africa now risks being undone by the food crisis, says a high-profile international panel.
The Africa Progress Panel also said wealthy countries are likely to fail in their promise to deliver billions more in aid to the continent by 2010.
"Africa has made substantial progress in recent years," said former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who chairs the panel.
"However, the current food crisis threatens to reverse many of the hard-fought gains that have been made," he said.
"With 100 million people on the brink of abject poverty, the cost of food will not be measured in the price of wheat and rice, but in the rising number of infant and child deaths across Africa."
The panel was formed last year to focus world leaders' attention on the continent and monitor progress toward meeting ambitious aid commitments. Its 11 members include former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and anti-poverty activist Bob Geldof.
In its annual report, the panel called on leaders of the Group of Eight industrialized nations to "urgently fund shortfalls against their targets to double assistance to Africa by 2010."
The July 2005 G-8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, garnered commitments to increase foreign aid by $50 billion a year by 2010 -- with half of that going directly to Africa -- and to cancel the debt of the most heavily indebted poor nations.
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development reported in April that foreign aid by major donor countries slumped in 2007 as debt-relief plans tapered off and amid a global economic downturn in Japan and some other rich nations.
The Africa Progress Panel concluded that despite increases in assistance by some countries, "the G-8's commitment to double assistance to Africa by 2010 is not likely to be fulfilled." It said current commitments fell $40 billion short of the Gleneagles target.
The panel called on the G-8 countries -- U.S., Japan, Russia, Germany, France, Britain, Italy and Canada -- to tackle the food crisis and promote trade, infrastructure and governance reforms when they meet in Hokkaido, Japan, on July 7-9.
LONDON, England (AP) -- Rising global food prices threaten to destroy years of economic progress in Africa and drive 100 million peopl... more -
Myanmar says US aid can't be trusted
There are so many valid reasons to be this suspicious of U.S. intentions. How many lives will be lost over this distrust?
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UN plan to increase food supplies
Global food production must be doubled by 2030 and farmers in poor countries better supported, a UN summit on the current food crisis has concluded.
Leaders from 181 countries made the commitment in Rome at the close of a three-day summit on food shortages.
They also agreed to bolster humanitarian interventions to help deal with shortages and soaring prices.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon warned up to $20bn (£10.2bn) a year was needed to alleviate the crisis.
Government representatives and aid agencies welcomed the concluding statement as a signal that agriculture - particularly the support of small farmers in the developing world - was now firmly back on the agenda.
"For the first time agriculture has been put at the centre of the world stage. For years it has been on the periphery," South Africa's Agriculture Minister Lulu Xingwana told the BBC.
The summit participants stated that the reality of 862 million people worldwide continuing to be malnourished was wholly unacceptable given the resources available.
SUMMIT OUTCOME
Target doubling of global food production by 2030
Focus on aid to small farmers in developing world
Give an extra $1.2bn (£613m) in food aid to 75 million people in 60 nations
No agreement on possible need to limit biofuel production
Biofuel high on agenda
Lesotho tackles crisis
Tortilla prices put pressure on poor
The UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Olivier De Schutter, said the adoption of a final declaration was "a sign that the international community is speaking with one voice".
But the summit, which was threatened to be overshadowed by the controversial presence of invited heads of state including Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, was not without its critics, says the BBC's Stephanie Holmes in Rome.
Representatives from non-governmental organisations complained they were excluded from discussions.
ActionAid's food and hunger policy adviser, Magda Kropiwnicka, said the concluding statement lacked concrete proposals.
"There are no quantifiable financial commitments. Apart from the existing UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) funds, no money has been given to address the key problem of boosting capacity," she said.
But Oxfam's Alexander Woolcombe told the BBC News wesite that the very recognition of agriculture's role is a vital step.
"There needs to be more focus on agriculture, not less, and we finally seem to be getting recognition of that."
Global food production must be doubled by 2030 and farmers in poor countries better supported, a UN summit on the current food crisis ... more -
Burmese still lack aid a month on
A month after Burma was devastated by a cyclone, foreign aid agencies say a quarter of a million people have still not received any help.
Despite claims by the Burmese generals that the relief operation is now over, aid workers say there remains an urgent need to provide food, shelter, clean water and other basic aid. A month after Burma was devastated by a cyclone, foreign aid agencies say a quarter of a million people have still not received any he... more -
Myanmar blocks foreign aid workers
Pressure was mounting on cyclone-devastated Myanmar Friday to allow access to an army of foreign relief workers as the country's isolationist military regime rejected expert help in delivering aid to victims at risk of disease and starvation.
Pressure was mounting on cyclone-devastated Myanmar Friday to allow access to an army of foreign relief workers as the country's isola... more -
Burma embassy takes holiday
I honestly can't believe this.
Western aid experts in Bangkok will reportedly have to wait at least another 4 days to be able to get into Burma with their aid, because the Burmese embassy in Bangkok has closed for a local holiday!
Apparently none of the urgent visas will be processed until Monday or Tuesday, something that the UN WFP aren't best pleased about:
"This is too long to wait for people whose lives are at such a precarious balance."
I honestly can't believe this. ... more -
Is US aid to Israel funding our own decline?
During periods of recession, when Americans are thrown out of work, homes are repossessed, school budgets cut and businesses fail, Congress continues to give Israel massive amounts of our tax money; currently, about 7 million dollars per day.
On top of this, Egypt and Jordan receive large sums of money (per capita about 1/20th of what Israel receives) to buy their cooperation with Israel; and Palestinians also receive our tax money (about 1/23rd of that to Israel), to repair infrastructure that Israeli forces have destroyed, to fund humanitarian projects required due to the destruction wrought by Israel's military, and to convince Palestinian officials to take actions beneficial to Israel. These sums should also be included in expenditures on behalf of Israel.
When all are added together, it turns out that for many years over half of all US tax money abroad has been expended to benefit a country the size of New Jersey.
It is certainly time to begin debating this disbursement of our hard-earned money. It is quite possible that we have better uses for it.
To decide whether the US should continue military aid to any nation, it is essential to examine the nature and history of the recipient nation, how it has used our military aid in the past, whether these uses are in accord with our values, and whether they benefit the American taxpayers who are putting up the money.
During periods of recession, when Americans are thrown out of work, homes are repossessed, school budgets cut and businesses fail, Con... more -
Make your voice be heard!
The Annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, is accepting the participation of You Tube user in its Congress Center viewing and answering the significant suggestion to what companies or individuals must do in order to make the World a better place in 2008.
Most of the conflicts we have in the World today is caused by economic inequality and its consequences.
The idea that corporation, which in many aspects decide the way other human beings and the environment are treated, are considering to take in consideration opinion and ideas of single individuals, like you and I, make me feel quiet optimist about the possibilities of a future with fair way of living for all!
So, it's up to you! You've up to January 27, 2008 to address them!
Make your voice be heard!!!
The Annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, is accepting the participation of You Tube user in its Congress Center viewing ... more
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Foreign Aid
