New This Week In The Kaiser Global Health Policy Tracker: The President’s Malaria Initiative announced a new focus country and USAID released a new fact sheet on the agency’s reform initiative. Kaiser’s Policy Tracker provides a timely single reference point for the latest information on congressional and administration action on global health. Strengthening…

Senator Dick Lugar (R-Ind.) on Friday said that poorly secured medical laboratories in East African countries, which hosts insurgent groups linked to Al Qaeda, are vulnerable to bioterrorism, Agence France-Presse reports.

Several media outlets looked ahead to President Barack Obama’s scheduled visit to India later this week, as part of his Asia-Pacific tour.

Almost “90 percent of active and retired military officers say diplomacy and development” initiatives can play a helpful role in reaching U.S. national security goals and that relying on only a strong military presence is not enough, according to a recent poll from the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition (USGLC), FOXNews.com reports.

House lawmakers recently introduced the 2010 Interagency National Security Professional Education, Administration and Development System Act in an effort to promote better “collaboration among federal agencies supporting security missions and foreign aid operations overseas,” Government Executive reports.

Food Aid Hindered Progress Of Democracy In Africa “The best way to help the millions of hungry people in countries that receive food aid get rid of their corrupt and incompetent rulers – and to ensure that their children will never go hungry in future — is to starve them now.…

The Associated Press examines international aid and advocacy groups’s reaction to the new U.S. Global Development Policy President Barack Obama unveiled Wednesday at the U.N. Summit on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

During a U.N. Summit on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) address in New York on Wednesday, President Barack Obama outlined “changes in how the United States will pursue international development” and “urged wealthy countries … to maintain development assistance to poor nations,” the Washington Post reports.

“African leaders said on Tuesday they could do more to meet U.N. goals to slash extreme poverty and urged stronger leadership among developing countries to tackle hunger and disease and attract investment,” Reuters reports in an article that examines the leaders call for African nations to take greater ownership of their development.

Blog: Chan, Shah Stress Importance Of Country Ownership Ministerial Leadership Initiative’s “Leading Global Health” blog has an ongoing series: “In the Driver’s Seat: A Series on Country Ownership of Health Programs.” The first post in the series is an interview with WHO Director-General Margaret Chan, who said “If countries don’t…