SAVING WOMEN’S LIVES
Afghan Women’s Health
According to The New York Times October 27 story, Afghan women are experiencing what health officials call "catastrophic" death rates associated with pregnancy and childbirth. "We need to rebuild our health system entirely after 20 years of neglect," President Hamid Karzai told Tommy G. Thompson, the United States Secretary of Health and Human Services, who visited Kabul with a small entourage in early October to assess the country's health needs. "Most of all, we need you to stay concerned about Afghanistan," Mr. Karzai said. Mr. Thompson signed a cooperation agreement with the Afghan Health Ministry and vowed to establish a medical clinic in Kabul to train more workers in maternal health and basic health care skills. The bleak assessment of Afghanistan's health care comes mainly from twin surveys conducted this past spring and summer—an inventory of hospitals, clinics and medical workers in all Afghan provinces, and a study of the maternal health of 100,000 women in four far-flung Afghan provinces—urban Kabul; Laghman, which is semirural; and the rural provinces of Kandahar and Badakhshan. In its inventory of Afghan health facilities, Management Sciences for Health, found roughly 1,038 health care facilities for Afghanistan's 25 million people, or one for every 24,000 Afghans. Read: The New York Times

Afghan Girls’ Education and Conflict
The New York Times reported on October 31 that the well-coordinated timing of attacks on Afghan schools for girls and a handwritten letter discovered in Karim Dad, a village just south of Kabul, appear to confirm Islamic militants have begun a campaign against the education of girls. The Taliban, with their doctrinaire interpretation of Islam, outlawed most forms of education for girls and women. The new Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, has reversed that policy, opening hundreds of girls' schools with the help of Western aid organizations. The Times noted that Afghan girls expressed similar sentiments as Bibi Sahara, a fourth grader, who said, "There should be some place where the women and girls can learn." Read: The New York Times

Treating Fistulas in Ethiopia
The newest patient at the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital—one of only three of its kind in the world, founded in 1975 by Australian-born doctor Catherine Hamlin and her husband Sir Reg Hamlin—has traveled 300 kilometers to get here. It is five months since Etanesh gave birth to a stillborn baby after an obstructed labor that lasted seven days. Since the birth she has suffered with a fistula—a hole torn between the bladder and the vagina or the rectum during the difficult birth, which left her permanently incontinent. Etanesh’s brother said, "Her husband ran away straight after the birth, we don't know where he is." The Irish Times noted in its October 24 story, “It's hard to comprehend as she sits on a wooden bench, head covered with a black scarf, her eyes scared and unblinking, but Etanesh is one of the lucky ones.” UNFPA's representative in Ethiopia, Dr. Benson Morah, said, "Many of the problems around Ethiopia's population's health quality and demographics point to the need for improved sexual and reproductive health education and services.”

Abortion Complications in Ethiopia
More Ethiopian women die in hospitals from illegal abortion complications than for almost any other medical reason, said the World Health Organization (WHO) in an October 28 story by U.N. Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN). Abortions are illegal in Ethiopia, although backstreet operations are widespread. The majority of deaths occur in women aged between 16 and 20. The WHO does not advocate the legalization of abortion, but calls for better family planning to help avoid the need for abortions. “If you admit 10 criminal abortion cases, then seven may die,” said Dr. Abonesh Haile Mariam, program officer for the WHO family health and population section in Ethiopia. “In the whole country we are talking about thousands of deaths due to criminal abortions,” she said. Read: UN IRIN

HIV/AIDS WORLDWIDE
1 Million Ugandans Died of AIDS: Health Ministry Report
Nearly one million Ugandans have died as a result of AIDS since the deadly disease was first identified in the East African nation in 1983, the Health Ministry said. According to the Associated Press’ October 24 story, the ministry said during the last 19 years, 427,153 women, 425,644 men and 94,755 children aged 15 years or below have fallen victim to AIDS-related diseases. Uganda, which has a population of 24 million, is often cited as one of Africa's success stories in fighting HIV/AIDS. It reduced adult HIV infection rates from 18 percent in 1995 to 8.3 percent in 1999. However, the decline has slowed, and fighting HIV costs Uganda about 0.8 percent of its gross domestic product every year. AP noted that the report's data was compiled from government and private hospitals in Uganda's 56 districts. Read: Associated Press

HIV/AIDS Education in India
According to social activists, the Indian government's coyness towards sex education among young people, who are becoming increasingly promiscuous, is fuelling the spread of AIDS. "There is a large population of about 300 million young people in the age group of between 12 and 24 in India and recent studies show their growing preference for pre-marital sex," Rakesh Kumar, Director of the non-governmental Center for Health and Development, in an October 29 story by Agence France Presse. "The government has no plans for the sexual health education for this group," Kumar said. Nearly four million Indians carry HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, making it the largest HIV-positive population in the world after South Africa.

CHINA’S POPULATION POLICY
Xinhua General News Service reported on October 17 that the focus of China's family planning work has shifted from pure population control to providing the best reproductive services. Experts attending the Sixth Asia-Pacific Social Science and Medicine Conference said the change was a result of the country's wider cooperation with other countries. Since 1971 when the one-child family planning policy was drawn up, a dozen international organizations including the United Nations Population Fund, the Ford Foundation and the Population Council, have worked with the country's State Family Planning Commission and brought China abundant expertise. To date, some 660 counties have already joined a pilot program to shift the emphasis of their family planning work to reproductive services, covering nearly 25 percent of all Chinese counties and cities. Read: Xinhua General News Service

GLOBAL POPULATION
Asian Population Estimation
Asia's population will peak at 4.63 billion people by 2075 and then begin to fall, said Wolfgang Lutz, Director of the Vienna-based Institute for Demography and author of "The Future Population of the World: What Can We Assume Today?" Agence France Presse reported on October 17 that at a seminar on the future population and human capital in Asia, Lutz said education was key to gaining a competitive edge, "China and Southeast Asia, and in particular those countries that already have low fertility and invested in broad education will see significant increase in human capital while the old-age dependency burden is still low.”

U.N. Population Division: Migration Report
The number of migrants in the world has more than doubled since 1975, according to a new report by the UN Population Division. Channel NewsAsia reported on October 29 that about 175 million people, or three percent of the world's population, are living outside their country of birth. Europe is the top destination, attracting 56 million migrants, with Germany, France and Britain among the favorite destinations. Read: Channel NewsAsia

10 Major Health Risks: WHO Report
In a 2002 report, titled “Reducing Risks, Promoting Healthy Life,” the World Health Organization identified 10 major health risks that accounted for up to 40 percent of the 56 million deaths around the world each year. Agence France Presse reported October 30 that the 10 risks are lack of food, unsafe sex, high blood pressure, smoking, alcohol, unsafe water or sanitation, high cholesterol, nutritional deficiencies, obesity and indoor smoke from cooking or heating fires, predominantly in Africa and South Asia. “The potential improvements in global health are much greater than generally realized,” the report said. “Extra years of healthy life expectancy could be gained for populations in all countries within the next decade” by addressing these problems with urgency. Read: Agence France Presse

EDITORIALS AND OPINIONS
In her October 22 column for the Creators Syndicate, Molly Ivins wrote, “The latest in a long line of anti-woman decisions by the Bush administration is, for once, getting some attention, in part because of the sheer cheapness of the move”—President Bush’s decision to withhold the $34 million approved by both houses of Congress for UN Population Fund. Ivins noted, “Two women—Jane Roberts and Lois Abraham have started a splendid symbolic protest, and it is spreading by e-mail, fax, newsletters and all kinds of women's groups.” Ivins concluded, “While we spend trillions of dollars on weapons, the military and homeland security, the real threats—water scarcity, climate change and population growth—advance unchecked.” Read: (Ran in: Chicago Tribune (IL), Charleston Gazette (WV) and News and Observer (NC)),Katha Pollitt’s Oct. 10 column in The Nation and Oct 20 article in The San Bernardino Sun.

“If George Bush spent more time and money on mobilizing Weapons of Mass Salvation (WMS) in addition to combating Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), we might actually get somewhere in making this planet a safer and more hospitable home,” wrote Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, in an October 24 op ed in The Economist. Sachs offered: “There is a way out. It is to empower the United Nations to do what it can truly do: organize a global response to the global challenges of disease control, hunger, lack of schooling and environmental destruction, an effort in which the United States would be a major participant and indeed financier, in exactly the manner that it has repeatedly pledged.” Sachs concluded, “It is time for Mr. Bush to take seriously his own statement at the UN that ‘our commitment to human dignity is challenged by persistent poverty and raging disease.’” Read: The Economist

“There is nothing more beautiful than watching people get to vote in a free election for the first time,” wrote Thomas Friedman in his October 27 column—about Bahrain, a tiny island nation off the east coast of Saudi Arabia that voted for a parliament that will, for the first time, get to share some decision-making with Bahrain's progressive king, Sheik Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa. Friedman noted that the king's wife, Sheika Sabika—in an unprecedented move in this conservative region—campaigned publicly for women to go out and vote. She visited a Shiite Muslim community center and an elderly woman stood up to say: "Thank you. Because we can now vote, for the first time our husbands are asking us what we think and are interested in what we have to say." Friedman concluded, “Bahrain took a small step last week toward giving its people ownership over their own country, and one can only hope they will take responsibility for washing it and improving it. Nothing could help this region more. There is hope.” Read: The New York Times

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The above summary was written by Elena Cabatu and Kathy Bonk at the Communications Consortium Media Center, 1200 New York Avenue, NW, Suite 300, Washington, DC 20005, 202/326-8700. Redistribution is encouraged with credit to CCMC.