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U.N. Poverty Adviser Says Promises of Aid to Africa Must Be Kept in 2006, or Millions Will Die By CHRIS TOMLINSON Associated Press Writer NAIROBI, Kenya Jan 9, 2006 — Promises of aid to Africa must be kept in 2006 or millions of people will die needlessly, the top U.N. adviser on poverty said Monday while insisting that every penny must be accounted for to ensure it is used properly. Jeffrey Sachs, who is director of the U.N. Millennium Project and special adviser to Secretary-General Kofi Annan, called 2005 the year of promises, after the leaders of the world's wealthiest...

After the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, the ensuing Civil War produced acute food shortages in southwestern Russia. Wartime devastation was compounded by two successive seasons of drought, and by 1920 it was clear that a full-scale famine was under way in the Volga River Valley, Crimea, Ukraine, and Armenia. Conditions were so desperate that in early 1920 the Soviet government sent out a worldwide appeal for food aid to avert the starvation of millions of people. Several volunteer groups in the United States and Europe had by then organized relief programs, but it became clear that help was needed on...

Advocates of the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) make increasingly strained arguments that the state has a moral obligation to provide health insurance for underprivileged children.  That moral obligation rests on social justice theories which posit that access to publicly funded health insurance is fundamental to human dignity and therefore an imperative.Former Lt. Governor Bill Ratliff has entered the fray on the side of CHIP, arguing in a recent speech (reprinted by The Austin American Statesman) that support for CHIP, a government-run program, rests on certain biblical teachings, and accuses those legislators who oppose increased funding and revenue to pay...

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia : The image of the United States in tsunami-hit parts of Asia may have enjoyed a boost thanks to its massive aid donations, but one year on, residents say US policy speaks louder than dollars. The US-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, along with Washington's pro-Israeli stance, have incensed Muslims across the region, and no amount of aid -- even in tsunami-ravaged Indonesia -- has soothed their anger. "I don't like the leader of the American people. I don't mind the people, I just don't like their leader," says Yan, a 35-year-old Acehnese dried fish trader who...

Bush plans overhaul of US foreign aid system By Guy Dinmore in Washington President George W. Bush’s administration is drawing up plans to carry out the biggest overhaul of the US foreign aid apparatus in more than 40 years in an attempt to assert more political control over international assistance, according to officials and aid experts. The proposed reorganisation could lead to a takeover by the State Department of the independent US Agency for International Development. USAID was established by President John F. Kennedy in 1961, managing aid programmes, disaster relief and post-war reconstruction totalling billions of dollars each year....

Recipe for reducing world poverty Reducing world poverty and child mortality. Improving maternal health and providing universal primary education around the world. Doing that - and more - by 2015. Lofty goals that are easier said than done. They are among the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals that were conceived as the 20th century ended and the 21st began. The UN estimates that between 1990 and 2002, average overall incomes around the world increased by 21 per cent. The number of people living in extreme poverty fell by 130 million. And child mortality rates fell from 103 deaths per 1,000...

FEMA asks Louisiana for $3.7 billion By BRETT TROXLER btroxler@wbrz.com 2theadvocate.com staff From a report by News 2's Tony Jones tjones@wbrz.com The federal government is asking Louisiana to come up with more than $3.7 billion. According to FEMA, the amount is a down payment for what the state owes for its share of hurricane relief. Denise Bottcher, a spokeswoman for Gov. Kathleen Blanco, said the state just can't come up with that kind of money. Bottcher said when members of the governor's staff first heard the request, they "just about fell over." Louisiana is already facing a $1 billion budget...

U.S. Army Spc. Melanie Williams, Charlie Company, 173rd Support Battalion (Airborne), shows an Afghan girl proper dental hygiene techniques during a Village Medical Outreach Mission in Atghar, Zabul Province, Oct. 21, 2005. U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Jacob Caldwell   Village Medical Outreach Photos Part I Part II Troops Bring Medical Aid to Afghan Villages Combined Task Force Bayonet conducts medical outreach programs in three villages in the embattled Zabul province. By U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Jacob Caldwell Combined Task Force Bayonet ZABUL PROVINCE, Afghanistan, Nov. 2, 2005 — Coalition and Afghan doctors conducted a Village Medical Outreach mission...

A US Army CH-47 Chinook helicopter taking part in earthquake relief efforts in Pakistan apparently came under fire while delivering aid, the US military said yesterday. US Central Command said the helicopter was not hit and returned safely with its crew to Chaklala air base. The US military said the aircraft "is believed to have been fired upon by a rocket-propelled grenade," but did not identify who fired the weapon.

LONDON: Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf has defended his handling of the October 8 earthquake and his refusal to permit Indian helicopters to fly relief sorties in Pakistan-administered Kashmir. “The world should understand that we cannot allow Indian soldiers to operate in Kashmir. Our whole defence system is there, our whole military is there,” he said in an interview with the British daily Financial Times. He admitted that Islamist groups on the “watch-list” — such as Jamaat-ul-Dawa and Al Rasheed Trust — were providing relief in difficult areas of Pakistani Kashmir, and said his government “must beat them to it”. Islamist...

Iraqi forces responded immediately to the attack; both Iraqi and U.S. troops provided follow-up aid to families affected by the attack. By U.S. Army 1st Brigade Combat Team 10th Mountain Division BAGHDAD, Iraq, Oct. 25, 2005 -- Four days after terrorist mortar rounds landed in a west Baghdad neighborhood, soldiers from the Iraqi Army and the U.S. Army's Task Force Baghdad were there to provide follow-up assistance to victims of the attack. Five mortar rounds that appeared to be directed at Camp Hawk fell short of the camp's gates Oct. 16. Two mortar rounds struck U.S. Army Spc. Jeffrey...

SRINAGAR: The Indian army stopped work on a footbridge that would allow Pakistani earthquake victims to cross over into Indian Kashmir for relief after Pakistani soldiers objected, an army spokesman said on Wednesday. "We have stopped work on the footbridge after objections from Pakistani soldiers," Indian army spokesman Vijay Batra said. He said the bridge was being laid across the Kishan Ganga river in the northern Teetwal sector of Indian Kashmir to facilitate the passage of people from the Pakistani zone to one of three relief points being set up by India on the Line of Control (LoC), which divides...

The Nordic model mixes welfare and economic success, but Sweden's social democrats are at risk from a loss of confidence. The prime minister has been in power nine years and the people are tired of him. They say their not well-liked leader should have made way for someone else by now. A new conservative challenger to this long-standing government of the left is a young dynamic moderate, uniting the fractious forces of the right. So a social democratic government risks losing to that most lethal human instinct - boredom. The age-old "time for a change" impulse may replace a successful...

A group of Iraqi men in Tall Afar, Iraq, talk to U.S. Army Lt. Col. Christopher Gibson, commander of the 2nd Battalion, 325th Airborne Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division, about the country's constitutional referendum, Oct. 15, 2005. U.S. Army photo by Pfc. James Wilt Paratroopers Aid Election Security in Tall Afar The Iraqi election day went by without any instances of violencein the paratrooper-controlled sector of the city. By U.S. Army Pfc. James Wilt Task Force White Falcon, 82nd Airborne Division TALL AFAR, Iraq, Oct. 17, 2005 — U.S. Army paratroopers from the 2nd Battalion, 325th Airborne Infantry Regiment,...

The journey down from the mountainside had felt otherworldly to 15-year-old Faisa as she drifted in and out of consciousness in the cold mist. She remembers only the smell of aircraft fuel and the wind in her hair as she sat in the damp cargo hold of the Chinook helicopter, opposite the stretcher holding her younger brother Saeed.Days earlier she had emerged from the baked mud and timber wreckage of her home, near the disputed Kashmiri town of Uri, gasping for air and in pain from severe leg and head wounds.Among the first things she saw were the bodies of...

Network for Good is the Internet's leading charitable resource — an e-philanthropy site where individuals can donate, volunteer and get involved with the issues they care about. The organization's goal is to connect people to charities via the Internet — using the virtual world to deliver real resources to nonprofits and communities. Founded in 2001 by the Time Warner Foundation and AOL, Inc.; the Cisco Foundation and Cisco Systems, Inc.; and Yahoo! Inc., Network for Good is an independent, 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization headquartered in Bethesda, MD. In addition to connecting the public with opportunities to give, Network for Good works...

RAWALPINDI, Pakistan, Oct 13 (Reuters) - Old distrust was put aside at a Pakistani airfield on Thursday when U.S. airmen jumped in to help unload an Iranian military plane that flew in with a mobile hospital for victims of a massive earthquake. An international airlift is underway to help some 2.5 million people made homeless and an estimated 50,000 injured in the 7.6 earthquake and teams from across Europe, the Middle East, China, Japan and the United States are part of the effort. "We're all here for the same cause -- to help the people of Pakistan," said Lieutenant Erick...

AMID shocking howling, emanating from quack-stricken vicinities of Pakistan and Azad Kashmir, the US President George W. Bush has proved himself as a true friend of Pakistan by all perceptions as he is the first apex leader of the world who has extended an all-out help and assistance to provide instant relief to the ill-fated populous—which is still being counted—and the digit of the affected-ones may step-up close to a million. Not only that President Bush has dispatched a number of helicopters to Pakistan for emergency rescue operations in remote devastated areas, he has also announced initial monetary help to...

The Bush Administration has lauded India for its assistance to Pakistan at a time when it too has been severely affected by the killer earthquake that has devastated several areas in Pakistan and Jammu & Kashmir in India. In a telephone call to Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee, US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld conveyed the US government's condolences over the loss of lives and property in Jammu & Kashmir and inquired if India needed any assistance from the United States. Mukherjee, according to an Indian embassy statement released in Washington, said that while India was touched by the US offer of...

India Quake Survivors Complain of Slow Aid