Horn of Africa famine: How to help - CBS News

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Somalia, already one of the world's poorest countries, is in midst of an epic humanitarian catastrophe, as a third of its popultion - 3.7 million people - face starvation. Throughout the Horn of Africa, in countries like Ethiopia and Kenya, as many as 11 million people are currently at risk of severe malnutrition or starvation as the region faces the worst drought conditions in 60 years.

The drought conditions, combined with an ongoing struggle between the Somali government and Islamic militants, as well as a recent rise in food prices, have all combined to create conditions that have stretched aid agencies thin.

The Horn of Africa region is now full of refugee camps, some with occupants numbering in the hundreds of thousands. Every day, countless families arrive half-dead out of the desert seeking help.

Many aid agencies say they have the capacity to address some of the worst results of the crisis, but they lack the funding to do so. Below is a list of ways you can help.

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Obama says Somalia deserves more attention
Video: Somali refugee crisis mounts

UNICEF is among the most active charitable organizations supporting children in Somalia. They say as many 640,000 children are acutely malnourished in southern Somalia alone. Their programs support 16 stabilization centers, 201 outpatient therapeutic programs, and 325 supplementary feeding programs. To donate money to UNICEF, visit here. To learn how you can donate your time, visit here.

The U.N.'s World Food Programme is the world's largest humanitarian organization fighting hunger, and is funded entirely through donations. Their work in the Horn of Africa is extensive and crucial. To find out how to donate to the WFP, visit here.

Save the Children is one of the world's leading independent nonprofit organizations. It has made an urgent call to donors to provide life-saving help to thousands of families in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia. "Eighty percent of the refugees are children and the majority of the remainder are women," says Duncan Harvey, Save the Children's Deputy Country Director in Ethiopia. To find a list of the many ways to help Save the Children with their work in East Africa, visit here.

The International Rescue Committee responds to the world's worst humanitarian crises and helps people to survive and rebuild their lives. Founded in 1933 at the request of Albert Einstein, the IRC offers lifesaving care and life-changing assistance to refugees forced to flee from war or disaster. To support their work helping refugees in the famine, visit here.

Doctors without Borders, founded in 1971, provides independent, impartial medical assistance to those most in need in crisis zones throughout the world. They have been working actively with Somali refugees in northern Kenya since 2009. To find out about the many ways to support their medical mission, visit here.

CARE is a leading humanitarian organization that places special focus on working alongside poor women because, they say, equipped with the proper resources, women have the power to help whole families and entire communities escape poverty. Their immediate efforts for Somalia refugees in Kenya include safe water, sanitation, and emergency aid to newly arrived refugees. Individuals, especially children, who are suffering from malnutrition and medical problems are referred to supplementary and therapeutic feeding programs and stabilization units. Families are provided with emergency rations while awaiting access to general food distributions. To donate to CARE's East Africa program, visit here.

Mercy Corps is a global aid agency that works for long periods of time in areas that have experienced some kind of shock. They currently work with Somali refugees in Kenya, and plan on expanding their mission to alleviate the famine into Somalia and Ethiopia. To find out how to donate, visit here.

The International Committee of the Red Cross has operations in Kenya and parts of Somalia helping refugees. To donate to the Red Cross, visit here.

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How To Play The Coming Recession - San Francisco Chronicle

U.S. Treasuries have always been seen as a "safe" investment, backed by the full faith, and credit of the U.S. government."

Yet with worries about the debt ceiling, and the possibility of a downgrade of U.S. debt, we have seen the continued move down in yields on U.S. Treasury debt. Many market pundits can not explain this move, but there is very one simple, albeit very negative reason why.

We are starting the first leg of another recession, just two years after the "Great Recession" ended, at least if you believe the U.S. government.

This morning, we saw a weaker than expected July ISM, coming in at 50.9. Economists expected a reading of 54.6. The whisper number was 52.0, and it missed even that number.

Let's face it. Economic fundamentals are nothing short of atrocious. Unemployment in this country is over 9%, jobs are NOT being added, and there were real concerns in the private sector that a deal would get done in Washington over the debt ceiling and cutting the deficit. The yield on the 10 year U.S. Treasury is hovering around 2.7%, well above the crisis yields of 2% seen during the "Great Recession," but it does not exactly say the economy is humming right along.

As the economy strengthens, the yield on U.S. government goes up, as investors demand more for their money. Money flows into riskier assets, such as stocks, commodities and such, and we have asset price inflation, which ultimately leads to inflation for the consumer, and the Federal Reserve tightens, and on goes the business cycle. This is nothing new to Wall Street. What is new is the speed of the cycle. We were out of the recession in June 2009 (again, if you believe the U.S. government). It's August 2011. Two years between cycles is extremely fast, much faster than anyone expected.

Of course, there is also the train of thought that we never left the recession. The second half of 2009 and 2010 were strong for economic growth, asset prices and all things that looked like the economy was getting better. However, it was all funded by the economic stimulus packages that Washington passed (now gone), quantitative easing (QE1 & QE2) from the Federal Reserve and a little more confidence from the consumer. All of those are now either gone or wavering.

Sure there is the possibility that the Fed comes in with QE3, or that the consumer will get more confident now that the debt deal is almost close to being done. Perhaps the recent weakness we have seen in the past few months is almost 100% the cause of Washington not being able to get their act together. It probably does have something to do with this, as we have heard from companies like Caterpillar (NYSE: CAT), Dunkin' Brands (NASDAQ: DNKN) and UPS Inc. (NYSE: UPS) that confidence was waning because of what was going on in Washington.

Only time will tell, but it does appear, at least for now, that the ugly "r" word (recession) is starting to appear again more and more in commentary, blogs, articles and day to day conversation. The Fed has said that it will to do what it can to prevent the U.S. economy from falling back into a recession. Unfortunately, the Federal Reserve can not cause companies to hire, which is one of their two mandates.

The long-run economic picture of the U.S. remains murky. "You've got a weak economic profile and rather more inflation in the economy," said Marc Mr. Ostwald, a strategist at Monument Securities to the Wall Street Journal.

It looks as if we are inline for another recession. In other words, it is going to be a bumpy few years. Sit back, put your seat belts on, and make sure your trays are in their upright and locked positions.

ACTION ITEMS:

Bullish:
Traders who believe that the U.S. economy will rebound once a debt deal is done might want to consider the following trades:

If the economy starts to print better than expected numbers, we could see high beta names such as Baidu (NASDAQ: BIDU), Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) and Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) move higher.

Bearish:
Traders who believe that the economy is likely to get worse before it gets better may consider alternate positions:

U.S. Treasuries continue to remain the safe haven, as the bond market appears to be pricing in an another recession. iShares Barclays 20+ Yr Treas.Bond ETF (NYSE: TLT) and low growth names such as Altria (NYSE: MO), will hold up better than higher risk equities.

Neither Benzinga nor its staff recommend that you buy, sell, or hold any security. We do not offer investment advice, personalized or otherwise. Benzinga recommends that you conduct your own due diligence and consult a certified financial professional for personalized advice about your financial situation.

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How to create instant Massive Web Traffic? What is Viral Advertising?

Viral advertising? Not many had heard of viral advertising, but what about viral marketing? Viral marketing describes any strategy that encourages individuals to pass on a marketing message to others, creating the potential for exponential growth in the message’s exposure and influence. Like viruses, such strategies take advantage of rapid multiplication to explode the message to thousands, to millions. That is how viral advertising concept works. Like tiny waves spreading ever farther from a single pebble dropped into a pond, with viral advertising your website ripples outward extremely rapidly all over the globe thus creating millions of visitors.

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How Elites Could Profit From a US Debt Crisis - U.S. News & World Report (blog)

Have you developed a hedging strategy to protect against America's rapid decline? Or repositioned your portfolio to take advantage of orphaned Treasury securities? Or stashed some cash so you can buy distressed assets from the newly bankrupt?

[See who to blame for the debt fiasco.]

If you're like most Americans, the answer is, of course not. But if you work on Wall Street, the man-made debt crisis that's brewing in Washington might represent a surprising opportunity to make money. As the whole world knows by now, the U.S. government will no longer be able to borrow money as of early August, unless Republicans and Democrats swallow their vitriol and come up with a compromise deal that will begin dealing with America's oversized debt and allow the government to function normally. The nation's mushrooming debt load is a big problem, but abruptly halting all federal borrowing would transform it into a disaster, since it would require vast government spending cuts that would promptly trigger another recession.

The ongoing assumption is that legislators will puff and posture until the last second, then congratulate themselves for making a deal that should have been in place months ago. But even if politicians avert the worst-case scenario, the size of the debt and the deep dysfunction in the nation's capital are likely to cause other trouble. It's increasingly likely, for instance, that rating agencies like Moody's and Standard & Poor's will cut America's credit rating from AAA—the top rating, which the United States has held for decades—to a notch or two lower. That would force thousands of institutional investors to determine whether they can keep holding Treasury securities or whether they need to dump them. Even small spending cuts that come as part of a deal to raise the federal borrowing limit could cut into weak economic growth, especially if they go into effect immediately.

The knock-on effects of a U.S. debt downgrade, sharp spending cuts or a "policy mistake" in Washington could rattle financial markets, depress hiring and drive confidence back down to recessionary levels. But smart investors know that one man's crisis is another's opportunity, and the monied class is planning how to profit if America goes bust. As the New York Times reported recently, some hedge funds are stockpiling cash, to buy U.S. government securities at fire-sale prices if there's a credit downgrade and conservative investing vehicles like pension or money-market funds are forced to dump Treasuries. Others are trying to identify institutions that might be damaged by a U.S. debt crisis and forced to sell assets that vulture investors could buy on the cheap. Another way to gamble on America's collapse is to invest in credit-default swaps that would pay out if the United States defaults on its debt. The price of such insurance has doubled recently, indicating a lively market for bets against America.

[See who will suffer if there's no debt deal.]

The modern financial markets are sophisticated casinos that allow steely investors to gamble on almost anything, including gloom-and-doom scenarios that could potentially harm millions. Though it might sound unctuous, betting on the likelihood of adverse events is a healthy part of a free market, because it creates an even stronger incentive for those who would suffer from bad outcomes to prevent them—and punishes those who destroy value, such as CEOs who mismanage their companies. But it doesn't always work that way, and besides, this kind of gambling is generally open only to professional investors or those wealthy enough to have experts handling their money.

In his 2010 financial disclosure forms, for instance, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor listed a small investment in a fund that bets against U.S. Treasury securities and would benefit if the U.S. government defaulted or something else happened that devalued Treasuries. That became controversial, since Cantor is one of the key Republicans involved in the debt negotiations and a conservative stalwart who insists there should be no new taxes as part of a deal. Cantor's office says the fund is in his wife's and his mother-in-law's name and amounts to less than $4,000, while the vast majority of Cantor's retirement savings are invested in conventional securities that would lose value if there were a true U.S. debt crisis. But Cantor's portfolio is probably similar to those of other affluent Americans, with traditional investments offset by a hedging strategy meant to minimize losses if something profoundly bad happens.

[See how a debt downgrade would harm America.]

Ordinary Americans who lack investment funds or live paycheck-to-paycheck don't have much of a hedging strategy, however, which makes them directly vulnerable if Washington wrecks the economy and jobs gets even scarcer. Some economists think the drawn-out debt drama—and the near-total absence of action on other big problems, like the foreclosure epidemic or sky-high unemployment—is already causing harm. Businesses, for instance, have virtually stopped hiring while they await the outcome of the Washington Follies. A sliding stock market reflects jittery investors who can't figure out if they should invest in a global recovery or gird for Armageddon. "Washington is locked in a budget war that will determine the U.S. economy's fate, not only for this year and next but for generations," writes economist Mark Zandi of Moody's Analytics. "Lawmakers may well misstep on this path to fiscal sustainability." If they do, many of them will no doubt have their own personal parachutes. If possible, get your own.

Twitter: @rickjnewman

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