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Closing Speech Of The World Health Assembly
Mister President, honourable ministers, excellencies, distinguished delegates, ladies and gentlemen,
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Federal Funding Should Be Available For Abortion Services, Opinion Piece Says
"The current debate over government funding for abortion in the health care plan is a reminder of how we have failed poor women," Frances Kissling writes in a Salon opinion piece. According to Kissling, the 32-year-old Hyde Amendment, which prohibits federal funding for abortion services, has played a large role in denying impoverished women access to the procedure. "Restoring those funds has not been a top priority for pro-choice advocates, who sadly concluded that because the public does not care about poor women and is actually hostile to poor women who have sex and become pregnant, it would be futile to put too much capital into reversing Hyde," Kissling writes.However, "we have an opportunity to make amends" by reversing the Hyde Amendment and restoring federal funding for abortion services, according to Kissling. "But the portents are not promising," she writes, adding that a group of "pro-life" Democrats in the House in a recent letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) "laid down the first major antiabortion challenge to health care reform." In addition, the Obama administration "has refused to rule out including abortion in the health care package, but President Obama is already signaling that the status quo on abortion is likely to endure," Kissling writes."The longer it takes to pass a plan, the more momentum against including coverage for abortion -- and possibly contraception -- will build," Kissling writes, adding that "there is a good chance there will be limits on government funding for abortions in the health care package, if not outright exclusion." A compromise being considered by the House Energy and Commerce Committee would not prohibit or require private insurers offering government plans from covering abortions but would prohibit the use of federal funds to pay for them. "Whether this would result in a reduction of coverage in such plans is unclear, but it is possible," she continues."The timing is critical. The need is great, and growing," Kissling writes, adding, "If abortion services are excluded from the health care reform package, the number of women who will not be able to afford abortions is bound to rise and the number of unwanted children will increase." Kissling concludes, "One hears over and over again that we all agree that the health care system is broken; the status quo is not acceptable. The status quo on coverage for abortion is especially unacceptable" (Kissling, Salon, 7/27).
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North Carolina Should Increase Cigarette Tax By 50 Cents To Save Lives And Raise Revenue
The following is a statement of Matthew L. Myers, President, Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids:
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G8 Summit Begins Wednesday; WFP Calls For 'Twin-Track' Approach To Food Security

The G8 summit is scheduled to open Wednesday in L"Aquila, Italy. The World Food Program (WFP) on Tuesday issued a statement praising the G8 leaders" focus on food security and calling for support of its efforts to combat hunger among the world"s poorest people, Xinhua reports. In the statement, WFP Executive Director Josette Sheeran recommended leaders take a "twin-track" approach to food security, which includes supporting long-term agricultural production along with immediate hunger assistance. "We learned a lesson last year when rising food prices caused an epidemic of hunger leading to food riots in more than 30 countries. Without food, people revolt, migrate or die. None of these are acceptable options," Sheeran said. Recently, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) projected the number of hungry people would top 1.02 billion, which reverses a four-decade trend of reduction in the number of hungry people, according to the WFP. Xinhua writes that WFP "depends entirely on voluntary donations, and has raised less than one quarter" of its 2009 budget of $6.4 billion (7/7). Britain Says It"s On Track To Raise Foreign Aid In Line With U.N. Target "Britain vowed on Monday not to cut foreign aid despite the economic crisis and said it would press Italy and other rich countries to do the same at a G8 summit this week," Reuters reports. Britain is on track to raise foreign aid to the U.N. target of 0.7 percent of gross national income by 2013, International Development Secretary Douglas Alexander said, adding that other countries are behind on their promises. "We will be looking to create the opportunity for countries which are off-track to make commitments that will bring them back on track," Alexander said (Meares, 7/6). According to Alexander, the G8 summit "is the time to publish a Gleneagles framework whereby the whole world will be able to judge ò€¦ which countries have met their Gleneagles commitments and which countries have fallen behind." The Guardian reports that at the G8, Britain plans to announce extra help for agriculture, as well as action to reduce maternal mortality. "In his white paper, Alexander promises to provide an emergency social safety net with help for 50 million of the poorest people by giving direct financial support, underwriting crop schemes, providing assets such as livestock or access to education and health to the poorest people. The aim is to build such social protection schemes in more than 20 countries over the next three years," the newspaper writes (Wintour, 7/6). In related news, Britain"s Department for International Development (DFID) is adopting a new logo, UKaid, which the government hopes will raise public awareness of its work abroad and help maintain support for aid during the economic downturn, the Telegraph reports. The House of Commons International Development Select Committee last month in a report recommended the organization change its name. The change to a new logo would increase awareness of DFID"s work among voters in the UK and aid recipients, the committee said (6/6). Pope Calls For New Financial Order Pope Benedict XVI on Tuesday released "Charity in Truth," a document that has been in the works for two years, which calls "for a new world financial order guided by ethics, dignity and the search for the common good in the third encyclical of his pontificate," the AP/Google.com reports (7/7). On Saturday, Benedict sent Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi a letter, which says former Pope John Paul II "was convinced that freeing the poorest countries from the burden of debt and, more generally, eradicating the causes of extreme poverty in the world, depended on the most economically advanced governmentsò€¦ fully assuming the responsibility they bear towards all humanity," the Examiner reports (Hale, 7/6). In the letter, Benedict asks G8 leaders to "listen to the voice of Africa and of the countries that are less developed economically," AP/Google.com writes (David, 7/5). This information was reprinted from globalhealth.kff.org with kind permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Global Health Policy Report, search the archives and sign up for email delivery at globalhealth.kff.org. © Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.


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