“Every Woman, Every Child”: New UN Strategy Amied At Improving Health Care For Women and Children.

The health of hundreds of millions of women and children looks set to improve thanks to the launch of a Global Strategy by The United Nations billed as “Every Woman, Every Child.”

In his New York address on Wednesday United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon placed an emphasis on the initiative making childbirth safer. The benefits of the advances that made childbirth safe almost one hundred years ago have yet to reach women in many parts of the world. In some countries one woman in eight dies during childbirth and millions of children die from malnutrition and diseases that have been preventable for decades.

“These realities are simply unacceptable. The twenty-first century must be and will be different. It is time to turn the tide, time to right a historic wrong, time to deliver on the promise of health and a better future, for every woman, every child,” he said.

Through the expansion of access to basic health care, simple blood tests, doctor's advice, immunizations, and the presence of trained birth attendants the inequalities affecting women and children can be addressed.

The Global Strategy for Women's and Children's Health provides a clear road map for making the fundamental difference in millions of lives. “Our strategy includes women’s empowerment,” he said, “Women must lead the way, because by empowering women we empower societies.”

Not satisfied with a piecemeal approach he calls for a broad partnership between governments, international organizations, business, researchers, philanthropists, health professionals and the civil society. “We all have a role to play and we must provide the resources.”

The investment in women's and children's health has a multiplier effect across the Millennium Development Goals (the Global Action Plan to reduce poverty) and the UN leader believes that this shall be “the most powerful investment for developing our economies, our communities and our societies.”

Don't talk about politics or religion...

They're one of my favourite bands. Horse of the Dog is easily their best elbum! The In The Garden EP was good but it marks a departure from the eponymous and serves as a prelude to as to whether the second major LP was an anti-climax but The Royal Society proves to be consistent and is definitely a grower. I'm listening to the new album Blood and Fire now just trying to make sure if they've still got that original thing that they possessed when Horse of the Dog came out? Nevertheless, they have been compared to the Cramps which is a good estimation and you would hope that they wouldn't be lumped into the 'rip-off' category cause they are great as their own entity! :D

{They're all the equivalent of enemy propaganda}

UN Security Council

The British Foreign Secretary has welcomed the move to induct India, Brazil, Germany and Japan into the United Nations Security Council, saying: "this [the UK] Government will be at the forefront of those arguing for the expansion of the UN Security Council." His counterpart in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Henry Bellingham, has added: "The [UK] Government consider that the Security Council needs to be reformed to ensure it is more representative of the modern world whilst no less effective in taking necessary decisions."

SOURCES:

[1]. http://www.theyworkforyou.com/wrans/?id=2010-09-07a.13244.h&s=Foreign+Policy#g13244.q0

Chaos Oil Spill Chaos

Igor Mezic, a scientist at the University of California Santa Barbara devised a method that calculates the movement oil predictively as in the case of the Deepwater Horizon debacle.

"We predicted where the oil was going to go," says Mezic, who studies fluid dynamics. "We were able to do 3-day predictions pretty accurately."

Associates from the software development company, Aimdyn Inc. and NASA's Stennis Space Center described how they predicted the movement of oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico after the explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon rig on April 20.

The theory was accurately proved as the predictions Mezic and his colleagues made were manifested when oil washed ashore in the Mississippi River Delta and later, on the white-sand beaches of Pensacola, Florida, and they forecast that the spill would then move east toward Panama City Beach. Their predictions were accurate to within a couple of miles of the actual extent of the spill which was later assessed by aerial surveys.

Mezic's new approach to the problem bases itself on computations describing how slicks of oil tend to be stretched into filaments by motion at the sea surface. To produce predictions of oil movement after the Deepwater Horizon accident, the researchers incorporated forecasts of sea surface conditions from a U.S. Navy model.

The approach, says Mezic: "could be applied to many different kinds of situations where a contaminant or heat is moved around by a liquid or gas." Further refinements of this new methodology could be done in order to predict the spread of many other contaminants such as ash spewed out of an erupting volcano or warm air seeping into a climate-controlled building. [1]

The bill for cleaning up the oil spill has reached the largest amount in American history, a figure no less than $8bn and is still approximately two weeks from being sealed up for good.

Because of the oil rig explosion on April 20th and the environmental disaster it has triggered BP has been forced to abandon hopes of drilling in the Arctic. [2]

BP's targets for expanded production have become tougher to achieve following the oil spill, and its financial performance has suffered from higher costs such as fines.

The major challenge that has faced BP in the wake of the spill has been the diversion of vessels from other fields thus dislocating its drilling plans and knocking them off schedule.

The moratorium imposed by Barack Obama on new deepwater drilling has also slowed development plans at BP and across the entire industry. Even when the oil spill has been dealt with and the drilling moratorium can be lifted BP's damaged reputation is likely to mean more scrutiny from regulators than other companies, analysts have said. This means it will likely take longer than it would have expected in the past to bring fields to production. [3]

SOURCES:

[1] http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-09/uoc--nms082710.php

[2] http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/sep/03/oil-well-sealed-bp

[3] http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE65267920100603

Image Source: http://climatelab.org/Deepwater_Horizon_Oil_Spill