September, 16 2010, 02:06pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
AIUSA media office,Email:,media@aiusa.org,Phone: 202-544-0200 x302
Amnesty International Urges Governments Worldwide to Step Up Efforts to Prevent Women's Deaths in Childbirth, Saying Recent Progress is Too Slow and Too Many Women Are Still Dying
New Report Shows Decline in Deaths, but One Woman Still Dies Every 90 Seconds; Most Deaths are Preventable
WASHINGTON
Amnesty International today
urged countries to urgently step up efforts to reduce the number of women
dying in childbirth, saying while new United Nations figures show some
progress toward reducing maternal deaths worldwide, the numbers remain
too high to meet a key global target to save more lives.
The number of women dying due to complications during pregnancy and childbirth
decreased from an estimated 546 000 in 1990 to 358 000 in 2008, according
to a report issued by several United Nations agencies on Wednesday.
But the figures show that the annual rate of decline in maternal mortality
is less than half of that needed to achieve the Millennium Development
Goal (MDG) target of reducing maternal mortality by 75 per cent between
1990 and 2015.
"Although a woman is no longer dying every minute, according to the new
statistics one woman is still dying every minute and a half", said Widney
Brown, Amnesty International's Senior Director for International Law and
Policy.
"Amnesty International welcomes the progress that has been made but the
fact remains that hundreds and thousands of women die every year in pregnancy
and childbirth, though these deaths are preventable."
"No women should die while giving birth, when such deaths are preventable.
Governments need to do much more to ensure that the most disadvantaged
and poorest women have equal and timely access to life saving care."
The new figures were published as heads of states prepare to meet and review
progress on the MDGs at a United Nations summit in New York next week (Monday
through Wednesday).
"Governments need to intensify their efforts
to ensure that all women enjoy their rights to maternal, sexual and reproductive
health and choice. said Brown.
Maternal Deaths in the United States
Amnesty International released a report this
year in the United States, "Deadly Delivery," that showed the
rates of maternal deaths in the United States have not improved in 20 years.
American women have a greater lifetime risk of dying from pregnancy-related
complications than women in 40 other countries. Two to three women
die every day in the United States from pregnancy-related complications
-- half of these deaths are preventable, according to the
Centers for Disease Control -- and more than 34,000 women nearly
die each year, many due to disparities in maternal health care that the
government is ignoring, African American women are nearly four times
more likely to die than white women.
To read the full report, please visit:
https://www.amnestyusa.org/dignity/pdf/DeadlyDelivery.pdf
Amnesty International is a global movement of millions of people demanding human rights for all people - no matter who they are or where they are. We are the world's largest grassroots human rights organization.
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Amid Spying Fight, House Passes Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act
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While applauding the U.S. House of Representatives' bipartisan passage of a bill to ensure that "law enforcement and intelligence agencies can't do an end-run around the Constitution by buying information from data brokers" on Wednesday, privacy advocates highlighted that Congress is trying to extend and expand a long-abused government spying program.
The House voted 219-199 for Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act (FANFSA), which won support from 96 Democrats and 123 Republicans, including the lead sponsor, Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio). Named for the constitutional amendment that protects against unreasonable searches and seizures, H.R. 4639 would close what campaigners call the data broker loophole.
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Wednesday's vote followed the House sending the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act to the Senate. H.R. 7888 would reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which allows for warrantless spying on noncitizens abroad but also sweeps up Americans' data.
The House notably included an amendment forcing a wide range of individuals and businesses to cooperate with government spying operations but rejected an amendment that would have added a warrant requirement to the bill, which the Senate could vote on as soon as Thursday.
Noting those decisions on the FISA reauthorization legislation, Ruddock stressed that "today's vote is a victory but follows a recent loss and ongoing threat as that Section 702 bill moves to the Senate this week too."
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Jeramie Scott, senior counsel and director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center's Project on Surveillance Oversight, also praised the House's FANFSA passage on Wednesday.
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Kia Hamadanchy, senior policy counsel at ACLU, similarly said Wednesday that "the bipartisan passage of this bill is a flashing warning sign to the government that if it wants our data, it must get a warrant."
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Leaked cables obtained by The Intercept show U.S. pressure on Security Council members including Malta—which currently presides over the body—and Ecuador.
While claiming that President Joe Biden backs "Palestinian aspirations for statehood," one of the cables asserts that "it remains the U.S. view that the most expeditious path toward a political horizon for the Palestinian people is in the context of a normalization agreement between Israel and its neighbors."
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The U.S. argument essentially is that the U.N. should not create an independent Palestinian state by fiat—even though that's precisely how the world body voted in 1947 to establish the modern state of Israel.
The renewed push for Palestine's U.N. membership comes as Israel wages a genocidal war on the Gaza Strip. The Palestinian Authority, which hasn't controlled Gaza for nearly two decades, rejected the Biden administration's requests to hold off on seeking full membership.
"We wanted the U.S. to provide a substantive alternative to U.N. recognition. They didn't," one unnamed Palestinian official toldAxios on Wednesday. "We believe full membership in the U.N. for Palestine is way overdue. We have waited more than 12 years since our initial request."
As The Intercept's Ken Klippenstein and Daniel Boguslaw noted:
Since 2011, the U.N. Security Council has rejected the Palestinian Authority's request for full member status. On April 2, the Palestinian Observer Mission to the U.N. requested that the council once again take up consideration of its membership application. According to the first State Department cable, U.N. meetings since the beginning of April suggest that Algeria, China, Guyana, Mozambique, Russia, Slovenia, Sierra Leone, and Malta support granting Palestine full membership to the U.N. It also says that France, Japan, and Korea are undecided, while the United Kingdom will likely abstain from a vote.
Along with the United States, China, France, Russia, and the United Kingdom are permanent members of the UNSC, so they also have veto power.
Ahead of Thursday's planned vote, Spain has been doing its own lobbying in Europe to build greater support for Palestinian statehood. At a joint Tuesday press conference with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, Slovenian Prime Minister Robert Golob said the question is "when, not if, but when is the best moment to recognize Palestine."
Belgium—which is seeking economic sanctions against Israel in response to its genocidal war on Gaza—is expected to join Spain's push for Palestinian statehood after the country's European Union presidency expires in June.
Currently, 139 of the U.N.'s 193 member states recognize Palestine as an independent state.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—who has also claimed to support a so-called "two-state solution"—has alternately boasted about thwarting Palestinian statehood.
Critics pointed to the leaked cables as more proof of U.S. duplicity and double standards on the Israel-Palestine issue.
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Yanis Varoufakis, a PI member and secretary-general of the left-wing Democracy in Europe Movement 2025, called the database "a treasure chest of well-researched reports on how the reactionaries of the world unite."
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