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 The Global Human Right to Health: Dream or Possibility? $59.95 The author is Professor (Emeritus) and Associate of Research Institute for Human Rights and Social Justice, London Metropolitan University and a consultant to the World Health Organization and the International Development Agency. He has worked in education and health in every continent. Written with great humanity and learning, this book is a passionate call for human decency. In his foreword John Gibson writes of "the parlous and preventable state of the health of millions in the Third World and the injurious effects of neoliberal economic policies in world trade and global finance ... unless we evaluate alternatives to existing structures to bring about qualitative change in health outcomes in the developing world, environmental disaster fuelled by war and international chaos is our probable destiny." In 1995 the World Health Organization stated that poverty is the major cause of disease. Chapters cover the UN's mandate of human rights; global finance and human rights; UN agencies' global impact on human rights; the worsening access to safe water; inequalities in global wealth distribution; poverty and primary healthcare; transnational corporations; gender equality; children's rights; literacy and education; the global impact of HIV/AIDS; malaria, TB and other infectious diseases; the exclusion of minorities; environmental sustainability; and the possibility of a global right to health. MacDonald recounts how, at international trade talks, the EU, led by trade commissioner Peter Mandelson, always presses the less developed countries (LDCs) to import more goods, services and foreign companies, especially to `marketise' health and education. The EU demands that countries cut their export subsidies, but not their domestic subsidies, so the EU and the USA can keep the huge domestic subsidies on their products, while forcing LDCs to slash the subsidies on their exports. The EU's Common Agricultural Policy funds rich EU farmers to dump their products onto world markets, ruining Third World farmers. MacDonald shows how the EU policy of Private Finance Initiatives is wrecking our National Health Service. He also details Labour's policy of poaching nurses and doctors - expensively-trained, scarce, skilled workers - from the Third World, first directly by the NHS, then by private agencies. It costs an LDC $60,000 to educate a doctor, $12,000 to educate a nurse. Britain now has 44,000 overseas nurses and 38% of the doctors working in hospitals qualified outside Britain. The LDCs are subsidising First World healthcare by $500 million every year. UN Resolution 2417 bans the poaching of specialist professionals. He writes, "WTO rules legitimise the actions of global banks, MNCs, etc., in destabilising Third World institutions, bankrupting their producers and taking over the economies of small countries." Africa paid $255 billion in interest in 1980-2000, four times its original 1980 debt. In 2000, the net outflow from Africa was $6.2 billion, in 2003, $8.6 billion. When the major capitalist states `cancelled' two-thirds of Nigeria's $30 billion debt, British banks managed to make $3 billion out of the deal. MacDonald proves in detail the links between profit and child slavery, profit and people-trafficking, profit and gender inequality. `Neoliberal financial globalisation', i.e. capitalism, doesn't work, it doesn't provide prosperity and equity for most, it generates vast and growing inequalities and it doesn't cut poverty and inequality. He writes, "Prosperity, even for the majority of the world's people, let alone all of them, under neoliberalism has to be an empty promise. ... Like any competition, it produces winners (and that is its attraction), but it must also produce losers, and they are as integral a part of the system as the winners." Solving the problem of global inequities in wealth would largely solve the problem of global inequities in health. They tell us that there is no alternative, yet socialist Cuba, even under US-EU blockade, is one of the very few countries to reach the Millennium Development goals of health and education for all. Should we just live with capitalism, as Prince Charles' friend Jonathan Porritt advises? MacDonald concludes, "There are certainly no reasons at all for believing that the very best system we can come up with is one that guarantees the perpetuation of marginalisation, exploitation, exposure to pandemics, warfare and fear." Health for all is a possibility, not a dream.  8 inch Noel Cheesecake $37.45 8 inch New York cheesecake, covered in Chocolate Ganache. Garnished around the edge with Chocolate Sprinkles. "Noel" and marzipan holly leaf and berries on top with border design in White Chocolate.  Delivery $15.99 I got the chance to hear a couple of tracks from this CD and I ended up buying it. If this CD doesn't get your toes tappin' and body shakin' then, in the the words of Joe Jackson, "Jack, you dead!!" The band is cookin' and Cecilia leads the charge with her energy and great vocals. You don't have to understand Spanish to groove to this disc. My favorite track is CRAZY. An infectious groove indeed! I'd love to see the band perform because I just know they will have the joint jumpin' and everyone working up a sweat. She's the real deal! [...] |
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