NEWS DAY | World/National news | October 23, 2009
Hungry in Ethiopia Four years of bad harvests due to the drought that has affected most of East Africa has contributed to a growing food crisis, 25 years after the 1984 famine that killed an estimated one million people, reports BBC. The Ethiopian government has called on international donors for food aid to feed 6.2 million people, on top of food aid for more than seven million who are chronically hungry during lean periods of every year. According to figures from Oxfam and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), some 46 percent of Ethiopia’s 80 million people are malnourished.
According to BBC Africa analyst Martin Plaut, the drought has hit only parts of Ethiopia, especially in the south, and other factors contribute to hunger in the country:
It is in part the result of policies designed to keep farmers on the land, which belongs to the state and cannot be sold. So farms are passed down the generations, divided and sub-divided. Many are so small and the land so overworked that it could not provide for the families that work it even with normal rainfall.
At present only 17% of Ethiopia’s 80 million people live in urban areas. Keeping people in the countryside is a way of preventing large-scale unemployment and the unrest that this might cause.
According to Oxfam, at least 23 million people in seven countries are in need of food aid because of the drought. The U.N. World Food Program says $285 million will be needed in the next six months, and said it is “particularly concerned about Eritrea, where it is unable to collect data because of restrictions on movement.”
Health care reform – challenge from consumer groups The deals made with groups representing doctors, drugmakers, hospitals and health insurers to get them on board for health care reform gave away too much, say consumer groups. NPR reports that they are fighting to get rid of “provisions now included in both House and Senate health bills that would give brand-name makers of expensive biotech drugs 12 additional years on the market before cheaper generic copies could be made and sold.”
Ralph Neas, CEO of the National Coalition on Health Care, is generally skeptical of the cost-cutting promises made by health industry groups in exchange for favorable treatment in the health care reform bills. First, he says, they stand to make much more from health care reform than they have pledged to cut, because more patients will be covered. Second, the pledges to cut costs are vague, voluntary and unenforceable.
War Reports
Pakistan As government troops continue a major offensive in South Waziristan, Taliban bombers struck throughout the country, killing seven people near a major air force complex at Kamra in northwest Pakistan and 17 on a bus heading to a wedding in the Mohmand tribal region. A car bomb in the parking lot of a recreational city in Peshawar, the northwest’s main city, wounded 15 people. NPR reports that the army offensive in South Waziristan is now in its seventh day, and that:
The army has previously moved into South Waziristan three times since 2004. Each time it has suffered high casualties and signed peace deals that left insurgents with effective control of the region. Western officials say al-Qaida now uses it and neighboring North Waziristan as an operations and training base.
According to BBC, “There are no details of the latest fighting, as journalists are not allowed into the conflict zone.”
Somalia An attack on the airport in Mogadishu failed to harm the president, who was boarding a plane to leave for a conference in Uganda, but killed at least 18 people and wounded more than 60 in nearby neighborhoods, reports the New York Times, as the initial mortar attack was followed by more mortars and shelling between insurgent militias and government forces.
News with attitude, mostly from MN but with occasional forays abroad. News Day summarizes, links to, and comments on reports from news media around the world, with particular attention to Minnesota news.
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