 
Health: a matter of life and death
In Australia, we take basic good health for granted. Good health, and access to health care, is a basic pre supposition that permits us to live, work and play, and plan for the future. But throughout much of Africa, Asia and Latin America, people are living without the barest basics of health care. In Australia, fewer than 1% of babies die. But in the developing world, nearly a fifth of all babies die - largely from preventible disease. This week's Backgrounder looks at why.
 
Pope says hunger and poverty cause war
 Pope John Paul appealed to governments on Friday to tackle hunger and poverty, saying they were a serious threat to peace and that having enough to eat was a basic human right. The Pontiff was speaking to representatives of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) - Reuters
Afghan cattle, sheep, donkeys decimated by warfare
Decimated herds of cattle, sheep, goats, donkeys, camels, horses and poultry in Afghanistan could take up to 10 years to regenerate after two decades of warfare and several years of drought, a U.N. agency said last week - PlanetArk
Refugees and Mental Illness
A population study of Vietnamese refugees now living in Australia published on THE LANCET's Web site highlights the need for specialist mental-health services for the small proportion of refugees at high risk of mental illness related to previous exposure to severe trauma. Little is known about the long-term adverse effects of mass trauma on the psychological wellbeing of refugees and other war-affected populations - unsw news
 
Pharmaceutical companies neglecting 3rd world diseases
DESPITE all the screaming from the roof-tops on `corporate social responsibility' by pharmaceutical companies - their efforts to develop drugs for diseases that affect the population of poorer nations do not seem to have cut much
ice with the Noble Prize winning organisation Medecins San Frontieres (MSF) - HinduBusinessline.com
 
Big technology won't solve water problems
In 2003,1 billion people do not have access to safe drinking water, while another 2.4 billion don't have adequate sanitary services: together these problems account for an unconscionable 5 million deaths a year. Scientist David Suzuki argues that the developed world must increase, and not reduce, aid - environmental news network
 
 Concern.net
What's Santa bringing you this Christmas? Not many of us will receive the gift of a goat under the tree, but that's one of many unusual gifts you could give to someone in a developing country from Concern's Gifts of Hope Initiative (See a similar Caritas initiative at right) - concern.net
 
To be a Christian
"If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing". "If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing" - awakeningministries.org
 
Aids - A Catastrophe foretold
This documentary pinpoints the economic and political forces implicated in the biggest-ever epidemic the world has known. In Uganda, Noerine Kaleeba, whose husband died of AIDS, describes her 15-year-old campaign to stop the spread of AIDS - SBS TV, 11 December, 1pm
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