Monday, June 15, 2009

Barack Obama'breaks four aid pledges for Africa

United States President Barack Obama has broken four campaign promises on overseas aid and risks reversing the successes of the Bush administration in combating HIV-Aids.
A pledge to spend 4.3 Billion on bilateral Aids programs under the Obama's Emergency Plan for Aids Relief has been shaved back to 3.3 billion.
President Obama had also promised to contribute about 1.8 billion on the Global Fund to fight Aids,tuberculosis and malaria,but his budget request fell short by 1.2.billion.
It calculated that this meant that one million people will not receive treatment for HIV,and 2.9 million women will miss out on services to help prevent passing the virus to their unborn children.
Underfunding these critical programmes has grave consequences,especially during the current global economic crisis," said Paul Zeitz,director of the GAA,speaking in the Kenyan capital,of Nairobi.
"President Obama has a moral obligation to demonstrate global leadership on behalf of the poorest and most marginalised people of the world,especially in Africa.
The two other broken promises related to stalling promised payments to fund education,and failing to increase foreign aid as a whole by a rate which will allow the President to meet his commitment to double such assistance by 2012.
It appears that the Obama administration and the politicians in Washington are counting on the public not to read about or research the important issues confronting this country and the world. How many of the Congress people read all those Stimulus bills before they voted on this them ?

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