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Where is Obama's foreign policy heading?
BBC -- Mr Karzai was seen in Washington as very much part of the problem in Afghanistan. This week, in contrast, he has had the red carpet rolled out for him in the US capital. Indeed, the apparent flip-flop in approach to the Afghan president seems to be a theme running through much of the Obama administration's foreign policy. Think how tough the Obama team were on Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over settlement building, only to back away from an all-out confrontation without any really convincing evidence that settlement construction had been halted. So what is going on? ...

The wavering war on AIDS
NY Times -- The global war on AIDS has racked up enormous successes over the past decade, most notably by providing drugs for millions of infected people in developing countries who would be doomed without this life-prolonging treatment. Now the campaign is faltering. Donations from the United States and other wealthy countries have leveled off while the number of people infected with H.I.V., the AIDS virus, grows by a million a year. By one informed estimate, only $14 billion will be available of some $27 billion needed this year to fight the disease in the developing world. Fewer than 4 million of the 14 million people infected with the AIDS virus are getting drug treatment — far short of the goal of universal access set by the United States and others...

African leaders unite to fight malaria
The East African -- For decades, malaria was the disease of sad contradiction. With a sense of fatalism, Africans accepted it as the leading single killer of pregnant women and children under 5, even though those one million deaths a year were fully preventable and treatable. In the last five years, the international community has awakened to combat this needless killer, pumping billions of dollars in foreign aid for bed nets, miracle drugs, and other interventions to save lives...

Developing countries stepping up action against climate change
World Bank -- Despite the global financial crisis and the resulting economic downturn, the past year has witnessed unprecedented demand from developing countries for World Bank Group support in their efforts to address development and climate change as interlinked challenges, according to a new report. Released today, the Progress Report on the Strategic Framework for Development and Climate Change documents the Bank Group’s growing response to these demands.