Word: basic
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...orderly neighborhoods in Baghdad may well be in the Shiite ghetto known now as Sadr City, where local imams, acting on orders from the clerical hierarchy in Najaf and for the most part ignoring coalition troops and administrators, have organized local militia to stop looting, provide security and restore basic services. But given the strong influence of Islamist radicals among them, these are not the elements the U.S. had hoped to see fill the power vacuum left by Saddam's overthrow...
...have come to naught, and if anything, the conflict is even more intractable now. The "roadmap" concept may be an attempt to bridge Israeli and Palestinian concerns by linking a cease-fire to a "political horizon" for Palestinian statehood, but it contains no new magic formula for resolving the basic standoff over security...
...Calcite in Gongdong's water causes kidney stones in residents and a lack of iodine in their diet makes goiters common. For the past six years, the French aid agency M?decins Sans Fronti?res (MSF) has trained the village doctors and midwives to treat minor injuries and illnesses with a basic stock of drugs, while referring serious cases to a township hospital. In addition, MSF introduced a payment scheme that seemed to work: it requires each village to classify locals according to whether they can pay for all, half or none of their medicine. Proceeds from drug sales help subsidize primary...
...system eliminates the incentive for doctors to jack up medicine prices to cover their expenses. Yet the project costs MSF just 25? per person per year?a tiny investment that has brought basic health care to some 8,500 people. "We wanted to create a grassroots example of a practical program that works," says Yves Marchandy, who runs the program. But the project is scheduled to end in June. Local authorities don't plan to continue it because they don't have the budget. "The hospital authorities are overly focused on turning a profit," says Marchandy...
...availability of physical comforts beyond basic necessities is also growing. Lower prices of raw materials and energy signal that they are less scarce, easier to find and cheaper to produce. Aluminum was considered a rare precious metal on par with gold and silver only 100 years ago, but technology has made its extraction cheap and its supply essentially unlimited. Demand for just 12 metals makes up more than 99 percent of world demand for all metals, and supply of those 12 is now considered inexhaustible. Oil prices have fallen over tenfold in the last century while the amount of proven...