IT PAYS OFF TO INVEST IN WOMEN’S HEALTH

(By Thoraya Ahmed Obaid anf Theresa Shaver) Every minute of every day a woman dies in childbirth. Not from a disease that couldn't be cured. Or from complications that couldn't be treated. Almost always she dies because she didn't receive the most basic life-saving care, write Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and Theresa Shaver, Director of The White Ribbon Alliance fro Safe Motherhood. While the advances of medical care ­antibiotics, better obstetric procedures and control of infections­ sent maternal death ratios plummeting in the 20th century in rich countries, complications in pregnancy and childbirth remain the leading killer of women in Africa and South Asia. This is despite numerous pledges by world leaders spanning two decades, and a commitment to work together to meet the United Nations Millennium Development Goal 5 to improve maternal health, get universal access to reproductive health and reduce maternal death by 75 per cent by 2015. At current rates of change, this goal will not be met until 2076 at the earliest in Asia... and many years later in Africa. The tragedy of a mother lost, while shattering to every family, is not suffered equally by the rich and poor. Even though 15 per cent of pregnant women worldwide experience life-threatening complications, a woman's lifetime risk of dying from such complications is 1 in 26 in Africa, compared to 1 in 7300 in developed countries.

CHANGING GAMES IN THE GLOBAL CASINO

At last, the world is seeing the difference between money and real wealth, between \"demand\" in markets and the real needs of people without money, writes Hazel Henderson, author of Ethical Markets: Growing The Green Economy, president of the independent Ethical Markets Media, LLC, and co-creator of the Calvert-Henderson Quality of Life Indicators. In this article Henderson writes that there is growing outrage and demand for reform of the games of traders, speculators, hedge funds, private equity, and even pension funds and charitable foundation and university portfolio managers, which drive up prices of oil and food, and leave the poor unable to afford to eat. The author calls for numerous reforms of the global financial casino, including taxing the 90 percent of speculation in today\'s USD2 trillion of daily currency trading; curbing the USD260 billion in index funds tied to oil and other commodities; reducing the 16-to-1 leverage allowed in oil and commodity trading by raising margin requirements.

BOLIVIA TEETERS BETWEEN DEMOCRATIC LAW AND FRATRICIDAL WAR

Bolivia today is split as much by geography as by psychology. Radical groups on both sides are driving the country towards a solution that solves nothing but rather encourages a general conflagration of passions and hatred that eclipses reason and threatens to destroy the hard-won democratic peace, writes Guillermo Bedregal Gutierrez, an ex-parliamentarian and ex-foreign minister of Bolivia. In this analysis, the author writes that the logic of this polarisation could drag the country into an irrational battle of inflamed factions whose only method is \'\'resolution through disaster\'\'. President Evo Morales, an auto-didact mestizo union leader from Cochabamba who defeated the political establishment with over 50 percent of the popular vote, is inspired by a \'\'revolutionary\'\' radical and iconoclastic idea and reads history through a lens of spite and resentment. On August 10 a recall referendum will be held to revoke or reaffirm the mandate of the current government and the Bolivian congress. This foolish vote will only further divide the country and fan radical passions, which could lead to the secessionist division of Bolivia. The country is passing through a moment -often unremarked- of confrontation and irrationality in which the valour of Democratic Peace is ever more absent.

THE EMERGENCE OF THE SOUTH

A fundamental transformation has taken place in the structure of the world economy. The dominant feature of this transformation is the emergence of the South. Indeed, the global expansion of the past five years has been more broad-based than even before. This has allowed many developing countries to become major players in trade and investment, wrires Supachai Panitchpakdi, Secretary-General of United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and ex Director-General of the World Trade Organization. Between 1990 and 2006, the real exports of developing countries nearly tripled, while those of developed countries grew by only 75%. Similarly, the share of developing countries in world exports rose from 24% to 37%. During the same period, our data show that the developing countries\' share of all inward foreign direct investment (FDI) doubled, from 18% to 36%; and perhaps more surprising, their share of outward investment tripled, from 5% to 15%. The geographical distribution of skills is also shifting. In 1990, for example, developed countries accounted for 40% of all technical tertiary enrolments globally; 10 years later, that share had dropped to 28%. The unprecedented expansion in South-South economic linkages has been demand-driven. In other words, South-South cooperation has been guided primarily by viable economic factors and not by political considerations, as had been the case in the past. In many cases, demand for South-South business ties increased despite relatively higher tariff barriers imposed by partner countries.

DECLINING DIVERSITY OF CULTURES AND ECOSYSTEMS ARE CLOSELY RELATED

We humans speak some seven thousand languages. The great majority are spoken by a vanishingly small number of people in isolated jungles and mountains while a few are spoken by billions. Languages, and with them cultures, are disappearing at an alarming rate; we may lose half in just the next generation. At the same time, plant and animal species are vanishing at an equally rapid pace. These two trends are closely related, writes Mark Sommer, host of A World of Possibilities, an award-winning, internationally syndicated radio program. Both anthropologists and biologists are finding that the diversity of plant and animal life is central to the richness of a culture ­ and to its long-term survival. Monocultures, be they in culture or agriculture, may be more efficient in good times but they are more vulnerable if and when attacked by disease and pestilence. In diversity lies resilience, the capacity to remain vital and viable even one some components are lost. Just as the smart investor diversifies her portfolio, a wise steward cultivates a diversity of flora, fauna and cultures so that if some are lost others will take their place. But as a species we've been remarkably heedless of this axiom. “Nature no longer trusts us,” says Vyacheslav Shadrin, head of the Yukaghir Elders Council in the Russian Far North. It's a haunting commentary on modernity's betrayal of ancient ways. Like thousands of other isolated peoples, his is under threat of being swallowed by the larger empire that surrounds them.

CABO VERDE LOOKS TOWARDS EUROPE

The European Union, which has constantly expanded towards the East, should now turn its sights to the West and look positively on the desire of the government of Cape Verde to find a way of integrating with the European Union, writes Mario Soares, ex-prime minister and ex-president of Portugal. In this article,Soares writes that the archipelago is turning into a prime tourist destination with modern hotel facilities and an appealing climate even in winter, affable people, and high quality dance and folklore. It is not surprising that European tourists find Cape Verde enchanting. The current president, Pedro Pires, an outstanding anti-colonialist warrior, respected politician, and consummate negotiator, recently stated, \"I want my country to gradually grow closer to the European Union in order to find new ways to guarantee development and security.\"

HUMAN RIGHTS: BROKEN PROMISES

In the 60th anniversary year of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, world leaders must apologize for six decades of human rights failure, and re-commit to concrete action, writes Irene Khan, Secretary General of Amnesty International. In 1948 in a move of extraordinary leadership, the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Today, it amounts to no more than paper promises for countless millions of people around the world. Amnesty International\'s Report 2008 paints a grim picture of the state of the world's human rights in 150 countries. Civilians are treated as “fair game” by governments and armed groups in entrenched conflicts. Violence against women is pervasive in every region of the world. The absolute ban against torture and ill-treatment is being eroded. Political dissent is suppressed in many countries, and journalists and activists attacked and silenced. Hundreds of thousands of refugees, migrants and asylum seekers are left unprotected. Despite unprecedented global prosperity, millions of people are being left behind. Big business is largely oblivious of its impact on human rights. Add to this dismal picture the human rights flashpoints around the world - in Darfur, Zimbabwe, Gaza and Myanmar. The burning imperative for action is clear – but where is the leadership and political will? 2007 was characterised by the impotence of Western governments and the ambivalence or reluctance of emerging powers to tackle human rights problems

UN DEATH PENALTY RESOLUTION HAS WIDE EFFECT

Any attempt to measure the effects of the resolution for a universal moratorium against the death penalty approved by the UN General Assembly last December 18 must also take into account the fact that its very passage has created an atmosphere conducive to elimination of the practice, writes Elisabetta Zamparutti, a leader in the Radical Party who prepared the annual report on the Death Penalty in the World for Hands Off Cain. She was elected to the Italian Chamber of Deputies in 2008 In this analysis, the author writes that the most significant steps towards abolition have occurred almost exclusively in Africa. However, the delays of the UN vote have also led European countries to go ahead and definitively eliminate the death penalty from their legal codes. This happened in France and Italy, where the death penalty was banned by the 2007 Constitution. But there is an important element of the resolution beyond the call for abolition of the practice: a demand that the death penalty countries furnish information on its implementation to the UN Secretary-General. Ninety-nine percent of the world\'s executions are carried out by totalitarian regimes in many of which, China especially, information relative to capital sentencing and executions is considered a state secret. In all of these countries, the definitive solution involves less a battle to end the death penalty than the fight for democracy, the affirmation of the rule of law, and the promotion of respect for political rights and civil liberties for which transparency is fundamental.

CLIMATE CHANGE: WE NEED A PROACTIVE MEDIA

There is no moderately well-informed person who does not believe that climate change is if not the gravest threat facing humanity at least one of the top two or three. It is therefore worth asking whether the performance of the media in this regard rises to the challenge, writes Mario Lubetkin, Director-General of Inter Press Service (IPS). In this analysis, Lubetkin writes that addressing climate change cannot be achieved without the application of firm and constant pressure by informed and responsible citizens on governments and industry and without pushing for more effective action by civil society. It is inconceivable that the people can play this role without being well-informed, oriented, and stimulated by the media. Although it is correct to recognise that in the last decades the space dedicated to the environment has increased, it is also right to expect the media to improve their coverage by abandoning their attitude of merely passing on information and beginning to work actively to shape the opinion of the public and those in power such that they comply with the objectives set by the international community to address the problem of climate change.

DIVERSITY IN CUBA

Just thirty years ago, being homosexual, in Cuba, could be enough to incur the punishment of interruption of university study or expulsion from a job that involved contact with \'\'the public\'\', writes Leonardo Padura Fuentes, a Cuban writer and journalist whose novels have been translated into a ten languages. In this article, Padura writes that today, in sharp contrast, various cities on the island held celebrations in observance of the International Day against Homophobia, a sort of gay pride event that included conferences, transvestite shows, book presentations, films, theatre pieces, as well as the growing commentary on upcoming legal and constitutional changes that will open the still restricted path to sex-change operations and civil union for gay couples and even the possibility of adoption, which is very rare in Cuba even for straight couples. Cuba is undergoing a profound change in its collective thinking that is of transcendent importance to the present and future of the island. Now that diversity has been accepted as the norm, it may be that Cuba\'s social system is moving towards greater social complexity and a more open economic model, towards a range of options for individuals that are freer and more satisfying.

IF WE WANT PEACE, WE ALL HAVE TO BUILD IT

\"If you want peace, prepare for war.\" This perverse maxim, a golden goose for the arms dealers, has been used from the beginning of time by the powerful, who had at their disposal the lives of their vassals. So it was, up until the turbulent but hopeful dawn of the new century and millennium, but no longer, because global awareness has grown and the understanding of reality has deepened, writes Federico Mayor Zaragoza, President of the Foundation for a Culture of Peace and ex-Director-General of UNESCO. There is no wartime economy without war, the preparation for war, or pretexts for arming to the teeth. The only force capable of opposing the colossal inertia of this machine is \"the people\", citizen power, a civil society that does not allow itself to be fooled, that only supports leaders who boldly decide to put in action the universal principles so lucidly expressed in the UN Charter\'s Declaration of Human Rights. Politics must be based on generally-accepted ethical principles. Incorporating certain religious values is insufficient and dangerous, as is basing political action on strictly economic criteria, which is evident today. It is thus extremely important that the excuse of a \"clash of civilisations\" be definitively barred from political logic and replaced with citizen involvement and general acceptance of responsibility by all members of society. If we unite our hands and our voices, we can correct the current disastrous course.

BURMA: JUNTA LEADERS POWER-HUNGRY AS PEOPLE STARVE

Rather than lessening the misery wrought by Cyclone Nargis, the Burmese military regime has made things worse. Burma\'s xenophobic military chief continues to hold up issuing visas for UN teams and other foreign aid workers, writes Zin Linn, a former political detainee in Burma and now, in exile, the media and information director of the National Coalition Government of Union of Burma. In this article, Linn writes that because of the unfairness of the May 10 referendum on the new constitution, the political scenario is quickly changing. The people have clearly seen how the junta operates. The regime is attempting to legalise military dictatorship with a sham Constitution and multiparty elections. Further political unrest may be unavoidable due to the military-privileged sham constitution. Burma\'s newer generations learned of the junta\'s inhumane and irresponsible behaviour on the Internet and have made up their mind to overthrow the regime at any cost. Protests are sure to happen before the 2010 elections.

EQUITABLE DEVELOPMENT: THE RISKS OF INACTION

(IPS/South Centre) There is much to celebrate in the growth and development of the South in recent years, from the ability of certain Latin American countries to avoid dependence on the North to the growth of the economies of certain Asian countries whose increasing sovereign wealth is now being tapped to bail out distressed banks in the North. While there are signs of growth in Africa too, the continent is worse off than the rest of the South, writes Yash Tandon, Executive Director of the South Centre. In this article, Tandon writes that the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are not being met, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, where at the current rate universal access to a minimum set of social services will only be achieved in 2108, almost a hundred years later than the target date of 2015 set by the MDGs. The risks of not acting are grim. We may witness increasing misallocation of global resources, a growing financialisation of the economy and greater risk of systemic collapse, an increase in what is most accurately described as a recolonisation of Africa by welfare and aid agencies, and increasing migration from the South to the North, and within the South from the poor to the rich countries, as a response to economic distress arising from marginalization and climate change.

THE DEMOCRATIC ILLUSION

Democracy is about people choosing leaders who are accountable to the people. So, what kind of leaders do we choose? In the Western democracies, they are not too impressive, writes Johan Galtung, Professor of Peace Studies and founder of TRANSCEND, a global peace and development network. Each country has a \"deep culture and deep structure\" that guides it, sedimented in the collective mind and history. The USA, doomed to lead the Good against the Evil, stopped the time machine at the end of World War II with US hegemony at a peak, intent on eliminating all challengers of the status quo. Take China, a subtle deep culture of good in evil and evil in good, but which stopped the time machine millennia ago with China as the Middle Kingdom surrounded by Barbarians. Add Russia\'s deep culture of the sleeping giant with periodic bursts of energy, or India\'s, the cradle and crossroad of civilisations, and we have four pathologies more dangerous than any individual president. Better a crazy head of state of a country that finds its equitable place in the world as one among others than the normal leader of a crazy nation.

EDUCATION UNDER ATTACK – RECLAIMING SCHOOLS AS ZONES OF PEACE

Amongst the many casualties of conflict, education seldom makes the headlines, but students, teachers, administrators, and education officials are also on the front lines of battle, writes Helene-Marie Gosselin, Director of UNESCO, Office to the United Nations. In this article, Gosselin writes that the right to education is a pillar of development. Prosperity and peace can only be achieved if we commit to ending the injustice of denying this right to the millions of children around the world who can\'t go to school, and who will nonetheless have to make their way in the world as adults. UNESCO estimates that about 37 percent of the 72 million children not in school live in conflict-affected areas. There cannot be peace without upholding the right to education, or without ending the vicious cycle of violence in and against our schools. Can we not open doors to the 72 million children not in school, teach peaceful co-existence, and make all our schools a sacred place?

CURRENT CRISIS HIGHLIGHTS FLAWS IN MARKET ECONOMICS, AND GDP

The credibility of the economics profession and its macroeconomic and risk models has been shattered by the Wall Street-led financial meltdown. Many analysts see this crisis as the beginning of the end of market fundamentalism as the driver of globalisation. Coming into focus is also the fact that the US is no longer the world\'s lone superpower. Military force is giving way to the new weapons of choice in today\'s geopolitics: currency and cyber-attacks, writes Hazel Henderson, author of Ethical Markets: Growing the Green Economy (2007) and other books and co-organiser of the Beyond GDP Conference in Brussels, representing the Club of Rome. In this article, Henderson writes that meanwhile, the long-simmering critiques of money-based GDP/GNP national accounts are coming to a head. Even GDP\'s creator, Simon Kuznets, worried about using GDP as an overall indicator of national progress and well-being, saying that \'the welfare of a nation can scarcely be informed from a measure of national income.\' EU Commissioner of Economic Policy Joaquin Almunia noted that GDP \'cannot distinguish between economic activities that have a negative or positive impact on well-being. In fact, war and natural disasters may register as an increase in GDP.\' GDP started as a World War II measure of war production. There are now many new, better indicators, from the Canadian Index of Wellbeing (CIW), the UN\'s Human Development Index (HDI), to the Calvert-Henderson Quality of Life Indicators that I created with the Calvert Group of socially-responsible mutual funds, the only private sector effort so far. Real wealth and progress can never be quantified in money alone. The economics textbooks are overdue for revision.

BHUTANESE HAVE HIGH EXPECTATIONS OF THEIR NEW PARLIAMENT

Expectations are high among the people of Bhutan for the new government to deliver on its promises, especially once the new Constitution is adopted in early May when the parliament convenes, writes Francoise Pommaret, Bhutan\'s honourary consul in Paris and director of National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) in Paris and advisor to the Institute of Language and Culture Studies (ILCS), Royal University of Bhutan. Despite initial misgivings about their country\'s shift from absolute to constitutional monarchy, citizens are waiting to see if the new government will be able to safeguard Bhutan\'s stability and independence. Foremost among their concerns is for the government of Prime Minister Jigmi Y Thinley to assure them that corruption will not become as rampant as in other countries in the region. The prime minister\'s Bhutan Peace and Prosperity Party won 44 of 47 parliamentary seats in the March 24 elections. The issues facing Bhutan are to be addressed within the framework of the Gross National Happiness (GNH) concept, included in Bhutan\'s Five-Year Development Plan of 2008-2013 and based on the idea that economic and material development alone do not provide happiness to people. Rather, the GNH emphasises environmental preservation, good governance, preservation of religious and moral values, and sustainable development.

JAPAN TAKES PROMINENT ROLE IN AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANCE

This year Japan will host two events that will be critical in helping to shape the African agenda: the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD), to be held 28-30 May, followed in July by the G8 summit in which the continent\'s issues will figure prominently, writes Sadako Ogata, President of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and former United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (1991-2001). African countries are not content just to grow cocoa or coffee; they want to move on and expand their sciences, information technology expertise, and industries. In today\'s world a country cannot improve its living standard by relying on farming alone but must also produce goods that create new sources of revenue. The May conference will be an opportunity to both review progress and address future challenges. Economically, Africa has enjoyed a robust 5 percent annual growth in recent years, and one of the major targets in 2008 will be to accelerate this expansion, in part by supporting large-scale infrastructure projects like enlarging national, regional, and intercontinental road networks, which will boost agricultural and industrial expansion.

SOUTH-SOUTH COOPERATION: THE ASIAN EXPERIENCE

(IPS/South Center) Over the years South-South Cooperation (SSC) has evolved from merely sharing technical know-how to cooperation for a comprehensive socio-economic transformation, writes Biswajit Nag, Associate Professor at the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, New Delhi, India. In this article, Nag writes that in the new millennium SSC seeks to harness the intellectual capital and technological advances accumulated by developing countries to find the southern solutions embedded in people, technology, alliances, and the forces of globalisation. Regional cooperation provides most developing countries with a platform to seek regional solutions for the challenges of globalisation. Though trade and investment are at the core of any regional cooperation, the environment, health, and education have also drawn attention. The Asian experience of regional cooperation is useful because most of the programmes attempt to convince national governments to include the regional agenda to benefit both the country and the region.

NATURE IS NOT MUTE

The world is painting still lifes, forests are dying, the poles are melting, the air is becoming unbreatheable, and the water undrinkable and at the same time Ecuador is debating a new constitution that opens up the possibility for the first time ever of recognising the rights of nature, writes Eduardo Galeano, Uruguayan writer and journalist and author of The Open Veins of Latin America, Memories of Fire and Mirrors: An Almost Universal History. It sounds odd, doesn\'t it, that nature could have rights? Yet in 1886 the US Supreme Court extended human rights to private corporations. They were recognised as having the same rights as people, the right to life, free expression, privacy, and all the rest. But there is nothing odd or abnormal about the bill that would include the rights of nature in the new Constitution of Ecuador. This country has suffered repeated devastation over its history. To give just one example, for more than a quarter of a century, until 1992, the Texaco oil company vomited 18,000 gallons of poison into the rivers, land, and the people. Once this gesture of beneficence in the Ecuadorean Amazon was completed, the company, which was born in Texas, was married to Standard Oil. By then Rockefeller\'s Standard Oil had changed its name to Chevron and was being run by Condoleezza Rice.

MAO ZEDONG IS ALIVE AND KICKING IN NEPAL

Mao Zedong is dead in China, but the Great Helmsman is alive and kicking in Nepal. What's more, the Himalayan Maoists have come to power not with the barrel of the gun but has been voted to government, writes Kunda Dixit, editor of the Nepali Times newspaper in Kathmandu. When they form the government, possibly with the participation of other parties, the Maoists face immediately the challenge of delivering on their promise of raising living standards. More immediately, they will have to deal with the soaring cost of food. Petroleum prices need to be increased, but the government can't afford subsidies and will not want to antagonise voters right away. The Maoists will want to push through some showcase legislation to prove to the electorate that they are serious about reform. They will want to get started on the controversial process of integrating their army with the national army. The two fought a bruising war, and there is a lot of resistance within the Nepal Army to combining the two forces. The Maoist leadership will have to balance pressure from their former guerrillas with the reluctance to not open up too many fronts right away.