International aid has begun to reach communities in need across Myanmar but continued heavy rain is expected to flood large parts of the low-lying southern delta region in the upcoming days and weeks. The area of most concern is the southwest region where the Ayeyarwady River and other rivers fork into a delta leading to the sea. This area is home to 6.2 million people, nearly 12 percent of Myanmar’s population.

“We’re very concerned about secondary flooding that is likely going to happen in the delta region as more water flows downstream,” said Pierre Peron, spokesman for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), in a recent Reuters news report about the continued flooding.

Salesian missionaries living and working in the region are responding to the situation with aid for the flood victims, many who have lost everything. The regions most affected include Chin, Rakáin, Magwe and Sagaing which the Burmese government declared a state of natural disaster. The Salesian house of Kalay, a boarding school in the region of Chin, is located at the center of one of the most flood-stricken areas but did not suffer any damage. The Salesian community in the region is already actively engaged in emergency relief work and also planning long-term rebuilding and education and social development initiatives to help flood victims.

“Because Salesian missionaries live within the communities they serve, they are perfectly positioned to respond in times of crisis,” says Father Mark Hyde, executive director of Salesian Missions, the U.S development arm of the Salesians of Don Bosco. “Our programs are helping to provide food, clothing and shelter to those in need and our missionaries will remain through the long recovery process helping the many families who will be forced to rebuild their homes and salvage their livelihoods.”

Salesian missionaries in Myanmar have joined local authorities and other non-governmental aid groups in assessing the damage to determine the best course of action required long-term. At this point, missionaries are addressing the most basic of needs but as the death toll rises, they are reporting massive numbers of homeless people, starvation and vulnerability to infectious diseases.

In an August 4th statement, the Salesian Cardinal Charles Maung Bo of Yangon said food and medical supplies are urgently needed to help thousands in the inundated Rakhine and Chin States and in the Sagaing Region. Cardinal Bo called for particular attention to be paid to the situation in Rakhine State which in recent years has experienced deadly religious conflicts and was already home to at least 100,000 displaced people, mainly Rohingya Muslims living in temporary camps.

“The scale of devastation is massive,” says Cardinal Bo. “In a region that is chronically poor, the poor have lost everything and have become refugees. Urgent survival assistance is needed in many villages and we are calling on everyone we can to assist us in this work.”

###

Sources:

ANS – Myanmar – Floods devastate the country. Salesians help the population

BBC – Myanmar flooding affects one million

Reuters – Myanmar braces for more flooding as international aid flows in

The post MYANMAR: Salesian Missionaries are Providing Emergency Relief to Flood Victims first appeared on MissionNewswire.

Around 150,000 South Sudanese have fled to Ethiopia since conflict broke out in the world’s youngest nation in December.  Nine out of ten of the arrivals are women and children who often walk for weeks to reach safety.

“It’s a massive emergency,” Antoine Foucher, MSF’s head of mission in Ethiopia, told Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone.

“One child out of ten coming into our hospitals is actually dying for a variety of reasons ranging from late referrals to very bad health status that is practically not curable.”

The refugees are fleeing hunger as well as conflict, with food becoming increasingly scarce in South Sudan.

Fighting between government forces and rebels has driven 1.5 million South Sudanese from their homes and left 3.5 million, or a third of the population, suffering acute or emergency-level food shortages, the United Nations says.

FIGHTING OFF ILLNESSES

One in four of the children who arrive in Ethiopia are malnourished, Foucher said. In this weakened state, it is difficult for their bodies to fight off illnesses such as measles, diarrhoea and respiratory infections.

The start of the rainy season will aggravate the situation, worsening sanitary conditions and the incidence of malaria.

“It’s a race against time,” said Foucher. “We have a one month window of opportunity… to bring the conditions up to standard if we want to avoid a catastrophe on the catastrophe.”

MSF has two hospitals treating the refugees. In Lietchuor camp, seven percent of the children who are admitted die. In their hospital in the town of Itang, 10km from Kule camp, the death rate is 18 percent.

Ethiopia was home to just 50,000 South Sudanese refugees before the war erupted. Aid agencies have been struggling to cope with the sudden influx, which has been as high as 15,000 arrivals per day.

The population of the camps could reach 350,000 by the end of the year, the United Nations refugee agency has said.

TRANSIT CAMPS

New arrivals sometimes have to wait up to a month at transit sites before being resettled in the permanent camps, about 50km away.

“This period is naturally very critical because this is the moment when they do need the most intensive care,” said Foucher.

“MSF teams provide medical care in these transit camps, treating the children, some of whom die within the first days following their arrival.”

Conditions in the camps are little better, with half of the refugees living under plastic sheeting and a severe shortage of water and latrines.

“After several weeks in the camps, where living conditions are very precarious, they do not get any better,” MSF said, highlighting the prevalence of diarrhoea and pneumonia among hospitalised children.

In humanitarian emergencies, people are supposed to receive 20 litres of water per person per day. At the Burubiey transit centre, it is only seven litres.

Each latrine should be shared by a maximum of 20 people. At Kule 1 camp, MSF said, there are 288 people per latrine.

“If the situation is not improved – in terms of water supplies, in terms of latrines availability, in terms of shelter – then the medical unit that has been deployed by MSF will only be able to tackle the consequences,” Foucher said.

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by Katy Migiro

PHOTO: Children displaced by the fighting in Bor county, stand on the side of a boat in Awerial county, Lakes state, in South Sudan, January 15, 2014. REUTERS/Andreea Campeanu

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Central African Republic has descended into chaos since the mainly Muslim Seleka rebel coalition seized power a year ago. Its abuses on the majority Christian population triggered waves of revenge attacks, leading to thousands of deaths and displacing hundreds of thousands of civilians, including the majority of the country’s Muslims.

The Chadian troops were escorting the last 540 Muslim residents of the northwestern town of Bossangoa to Gore in Chad when militia attacked the convoy at night on April 11 as it passed through Boguila, around 310 miles (500 km) north of the capital Bangui.

The Chadian soldiers fought back, and three wounded were later admitted to MSF facilities in Boguila and Paoua.

“We witnessed the majority of the population fleeing in panic to the bush,” Stefano Argenziano, MSF head of mission in the country, said in a statement on Tuesday, estimating that around 7,000 people were displaced in the clash.

“We are worried that the gun battle may have resulted in more people being injured. For the moment we cannot access the area to verify if this is the case and evacuate the wounded,” Argenziano said.

The United Nations said earlier this month it was trying to urgently evacuate 19,000 Muslims from Bangui and other parts of Central African Republic who are surrounded by anti-balaka Christian militia threatening their lives.

Chadian troops, at the heart of African efforts to stabilise the country, have escorted convoys carrying tens of thousands of Muslims.

N’Djamena began withdrawing its troops from Central African Republic’s African Union peacekeeping mission, known as MISCA, earlier this month, however, following a series of violent incidents including an attack on a market that killed 30 civilians.

MISCA officers confirmed on Tuesday that Chad had competed its withdrawal and the AU mission and soldiers from a French intervention force had replaced them.

“They left with all their kit without waiting to be relieved,” said a MISCA commander whose Congolese troops had replaced the Chadians in the towns of Kabo and Batangafo.

The United Nations Security Council last week authorized the creation of a nearly 12,000-strong U.N. peacekeeping force in the Central African Republic in a bid to end the violence. The U.N. operation will assume authority on Sept. 15 from the 5,600-strong MISCA force.

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by Crispin Dembassa-Kette

PHOTO: Children stand during rain in front of Saint Michel Catholic church in the town of Boda, Central African Republic, April 14, 2014. REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic

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MSF said it had taken 11 months to procure affordable drugs to vaccinate children against pneumonia in Yida refugee camp in South Sudan due to bureaucratic and legal red tape.

It said it had obtained the vaccine from pharmaceutical firm GlaxoSmithKline to start vaccinating children in Yida camp and this should lead to a substantial cut in the number of deaths.

Sudanese refugees began streaming across the border into South Sudan in June 2011, fleeing conflict between the Khartoum government and rebels in South Kordofan.

Large numbers of children died in MSF’s hospital in the camp last year. Respiratory tract infections, such as pneumonia, were one of the main causes of death.

“The situation in Yida last year was excruciating, with children dying of diseases that vaccines could have protected them against,” Audrey Landmann, MSF project coordinator in Yida at the time, said in a statement.

Children in refugee camps are highly vulnerable to disease as they are often malnourished and living in overcrowded conditions with inadequate shelter, clean water or sanitation facilities.

The pneumococcal vaccine is a new vaccine, first introduced by the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (GAVI Alliance) to Kenya in 2011. Pneumococcal disease, which can cause pneumonia, meningitis and sepsis, kills more than half a million people a year, half of them children under five.

BLIND SPOT

GAVI, set up in 2000, uses private and government donor backing to negotiate down vaccine prices for the developing world and then bulk-buy and deliver them to some of the world’s poorest countries.

It has made major strides in rolling out new vaccines in poor countries at affordable prices – but it does not cover vaccination in refugee and crisis-affected populations.

Pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer and GSK sell their new vaccines to GAVI at a discount but do not offer the same prices to medical charities like MSF.

MSF paid GSK $7 per dose for the vaccine, compared with the $3.40 a dose GAVI pays as a result of signing a 10-year deal with Pfizer and GSK to buy millions of doses of their patented pneumonia vaccine.

Three doses are needed per child.

“Why do we keep hearing the players in the global vaccination community tell us these kids aren’t their problem?” said Kate Elder, Vaccines Policy Advisor at MSF’s Access Campaign.

“We should be making every effort for refugee children to benefit from the newest vaccines, instead of letting them languish in the global community’s blind spot.”

FRUSTRATED

At the heart of the dispute is a difference in philosophy between GAVI’s development-oriented approach and MSF’s humanitarian creed.

GAVI is focused on building up governmental vaccination programs. It funds and supports governments to develop the health systems, staff and expertise needed to immunize their children over the long term.

The governments also pay a percentage of the price of the vaccines with a view to taking on the cost themselves in future.

“The whole idea is to build up their immunization system so that they can eventually do it themselves,” said a GAVI spokesman. “We don’t just parachute in when we feel like it and start immunizing kids.”

In contrast, MSF works in some of the world’s toughest humanitarian disaster zones where there is often no government presence at all.

In South Sudan, the fledgling two-year-old government is not yet providing the pneumococcal vaccine to its own children.

In April, MSF launched a ‘Dear GAVI’ campaign on the issue of accessing low-cost vaccines for refugees and crisis-affected populations.

It said it had been “frustrated by bilateral discussions, which have been ongoing for a few years now” and that it anticipated that it “will also be a challenge” to obtain other new vaccines, like rotavirus, at the prices GAVI pays.

MSF said it was looking for a sustainable solution to the problem so that it could act swiftly in future crises.

The GAVI spokesman said GAVI did allow non-governmental organizations to deliver vaccines in some countries, such as Afghanistan, where the state is weak or does not control the entire country.

“We are discussing some flexibility on how we support fragile states,” he said.

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by Katy Migiro (Thomson Reuters Foundation)

The post REUTERS: Child Refugees Dying Needlessly Due to Vaccine Bureaucracy, Says MSF first appeared on MissionNewswire.

Mukoya initially traveled to the area to cover stories related to the proposed disarmament process by the United Nations (which has yet to happen). Instread, he decided to focus his attention, and his lens, on children affected by the instability in the region. His research brought him to the Salesian-run Don Bosco Ngangi community center in Goma.

Children are extremely vulnerable when it comes to civil war and violence. Many were abandoned during the recent fighting between the Congolese army (known as the FARDC) and the M23 rebels. For many of these abandoned children, Don Bosco Ngangi has become a safe haven.

Established in 1988, Don Bosco Ngangi hosts more than 3,000 abandoned children and HIV/AIDS victims. According to Father Piero Gavioli, the center’s director, young victims with nowhere else to turn continue to arrive at the center.

“Father Gavioli told me that when the rebels took over Goma in December 2012, the center was not affected,” said Mukoya. “Not a single bullet was fired towards the facility that played host to running refugees from the different villages of North Kivu. The work happening at the center is very important.”

Father Gavioli—who Mukoya described as having a “very kind personality”—gave the Reuters photographer a tour of the facility, including the kitchen where dinner was being prepared, the outside space where groups of older kids were playing and laughing and a nursery where young orphans were being cared for by the Salesians.

“Immediately entering the children’s room I was touched by this 18 month old child named Imani,” said Mukoya.

The toddler, whose name translates to “Faith” in English, was “playing in his baby-cot and always smiled to the camera,” he added.

“The children are gorgeous and it was moving to see how much they liked visitors and were interested in my cameras,” Mukoya said. “I was inspired by the way young children lived and played together as a family.”

The photos were initially posted on Trust.org, a site of the Thompson Reuters Foundation.

THOMAS MUKOYA’S PHOTOS ARE BELOW:

(ABOVE) An abandoned child drinks milk at the Don Bosco Ngangi community center in Goma, North Kivu region. (August 6, 2013) REUTERS/Thomas Mukoya

(ABOVE) Abandoned children play at the Don Bosco Ngangi community center in Goma, North Kivu region. (August 6, 2013) REUTERS/Thomas Mukoya

(ABOVE) Michelle Sodiki, an abandoned child, rests in his cot at the Don Bosco Ngangi community center in Goma, North Kivu region. (August 6, 2013) REUTERS/Thomas Mukoya

(ABOVE) A youth jumps through the air as he plays at the Don Bosco Ngangi community center in Goma, North Kivu region. (August 6, 2013) REUTERS/Thomas Mukoya

(ABOVE) Imani, an abandoned child, plays in his cot at the Don Bosco Ngangi community center in Goma, North Kivu region of the Democratic Republic of Congo. (August 6, 2013) REUTERS/Thomas Mukoya

(ABOVE) A worker prepares food “ugali” at the Don Bosco Ngangi community center in Goma, North Kivu region. (August 6, 2013) REUTERS/Thomas Mukoya

(LEFT) A medic treats an abandoned child at the Don Bosco Ngangi community center in Goma, North Kivu region. (August 6, 2013) REUTERS/Thomas Mukoya

The post DR CONGO: Reuters Photographer Captures Life at Center Where Salesians Care for More than 3,000 Abandoned Children, HIV/AIDS Victims first appeared on MissionNewswire.

(AlertNet) – About a quarter of Somalia’s population still need aid to keep them from starvation and rebuild their livelihoods, even though much of the country has been stabilized by a campaign to drive back Islamist militants, the United Nations said on Thursday.

A United Nations report said around 260,000 people, half of them children, had died between 2010 and 2012 in a famine that had been exacerbated and kept out of view by the al Shabaab group, who at the time controlled large swathes of Somalia.

The militants have since been pushed back, mainly by African peacekeeping troops, although parts of the countryside remain under al Shabaab’s control or influence.

Somalia has been making a slow recovery and a new federal government is now in place in Mogadishu, but diplomats say the gains are fragile. Militants still stage attacks and aid workers say many Somalis still live a hand-to-mouth existence.

As well as bemoaning the restrictions that al Shabaab had placed on relief efforts in 2010-12, the United Nations said it had learned lessons from the famine that should ensure better help for the 2.7 million Somalis still reliant on outside help.

“Warnings that began as far back as the drought in 2010 did not trigger sufficient early action,” U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia Philippe Lazzarini said in a statement.

“In the worst-affected areas, access to people in need was tremendously difficult,” he said, explaining in a news conference relayed from Mogadishu that famine-affected areas in south and central Somalia had been under al Shabaab control.

“We have been working with our partners to change the way we operate,” he said, adding that this involved better coordination between agencies providing health services, clean water and other support to improve resilience against future disasters.

Restoring order and rebuilding the economy are seen as vital to preventing a return to the war and anarchy of the past two decades that made Somalia a base for piracy in the Indian Ocean and a regional launchpad for Islamist militants.

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Writing by Edmund Blair; Editing by Kevin Liffey – Reuters / Trust.org

UN PHOTO/Stuart Price

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Public anger over the attack on a 23-year-old student who was beaten, raped and tortured on a bus in New Delhi led to a panel of judges putting forward numerous recommendations for amendments to laws to tackle gender violence in the country.

But Avaaz officials said these recommendations — which include strict punishments for gang rape and making voyeurism and stalking criminal offenses — were not enough and that educating the public and reversing patriarchal attitudes were crucial to ending the rising number of rapes in the country.

“Rape is simply rampant in India today,” said Ricken Patel, Avaaz’s executive director.

“To treat this cancer, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh must back a massive, long-term public education campaign that attacks the attitudes that permit and promote violence against women, harnessing Bollywood and cricket to take the message into every Indian home.”

The 24,206 rapes reported in 2011 by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) are the equivalent of one rape every 20 minutes, but the police estimate only 4 out of 10 rapes are reported, largely because of the deep-rooted conservatism of Indian society, in which many victims are scared to come forward for fear of being “shamed” by their family and community.

FOUR-STEP SOLUTION:

In a new report, Avaaz said there was extensive evidence that mass public education programs had a significant impact on popular cultural attitudes and behavior towards women.

For example, it cited India’s “Bell Bajao” (Ring the doorbell) campaign run by the charity Breakthrough, which it said had achieved a dramatic increase in public awareness about domestic violence in the country.

“(This) shows that where there is the will, resources and competence to do the job well, public education can be a game-changer for social problems that often prove resistant to other methods,” said the report “Curing India’s Rape Epidemic: The Education Option“.

Four steps are required to make a public education campaign to tackle violence against women successful, the report said.

First, the Indian authorities must invest around 50 rupees ($1) per year for every Indian citizen, it said, adding that this cost could be reduced through partnerships with the media.

Second, the campaign should last at least four years, and be carried out in conjunction with permanent education programs in schools.

Third, the government should establish a new authority to take charge of the campaign and recruit the best brains from the media, sport and entertainment industries as well as from civil society organizations.

Finally, the government must establish targets for the reduction in the number of sexual assault cases, so that progress is watched and can be carefully monitored.

Avaaz says it has already collected over one million signatures on a petition calling on the government to launch such a campaign.

“To end the war on women, the government must now prioritize this policy,” the report concluded. “Only a government-led mass education campaign will create an India safe for women.”

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By Nita Bhalla

PHOTO: REUTERS/Adnan Abidi

See related article > INDIA: New Salesian Initiative to Provide Human Rights Education to Tens of Thousands of Youth

The post TRUSTLAW: Public Education Can End India’s “Rape Epidemic” first appeared on MissionNewswire.

Ethiopia wants to increase its electricity exports – mainly generated from hydropower – as a reliable source of precious hard currency. It is estimated to possess a potential capacity of 45,000 megawatts (MW) from hydro alone, which could place it at the center of an emerging electricity network across the region, driven largely by renewable energy.

The Eastern Africa Power Pool aims to connect the power grids of at least nine countries, including Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi, Tanzania, Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan and Djibouti. It may also be extended to northern and southern Africa.

State-owned Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation (EEPCo) last year announced a revised 25-year power-sector strategy, aiming to boost generating capacity to 37,000 MW by 2037. A substantial amount is intended to be surplus power and is slated for export.

Work is already underway to achieve this goal. The 283-km Ethiopia-Djibouti transmission line was officially inaugurated in October 2011. The 230-kV line, enabling Djibouti to import up to 60 MW of electricity, is estimated to be earning Ethiopia at least $1.5 million per month, and has eased Djibouti’s reliance on fossil-fuel power plants and generators.

The African Development Bank (AfDB) provided $95 million for the project linking the two countries. Its launch was significant for Ethiopia, as tiny Djibouti has a port that serves as the gateway for around 98 percent of landlocked Ethiopia’s export-import trade, creating economic and security interdependence.

Electricity is costly in Djibouti compared with the rest of East Africa and even Arab League member states, making its capital, Djibouti City, one of the most expensive cities in the Arab world.

Producing power with fuel-operated generators costs about $0.25 per kilowatt hour compared with around $0.07 per kilowatt hour for the power Ethiopia is exporting to Djibouti, according to EEPCo.

But the project caused some controversy when it was launched. At the time, major cities in Ethiopia, including Addis Ababa, faced sporadic power cuts, sparking grumbles by some Ethiopians that the scheme came at the expense of their own domestic power supply.

Multilateral donors were also initially hesitant about the feasibility of power export schemes due to concerns over inadequate infrastructure and political instability in the region.

SUDAN CONNECTION ‘OVERDUE’

Nonetheless, wider plans are gathering speed, with the 296-km, 230-kV Ethiopia-Sudan transmission line now being tested. Ethiopia expects to sell up to 100 MW of electricity to Sudan, according to EEPCo spokesman Miskir Negash.

The power exports will be managed so as not to jeopardise Ethiopia’s domestic power supply, and the price for the electricity will be announced soon by the Ethiopian government after it finalises negotiations with Sudan, Negash added.

The $41million project, funded by the World Bank, started in 2008 and has three sections of transmission lines in Ethiopia which will connect with a line in the Sudanese border city of Gedaref.

Abdelrahman Sirelkhatim, Sudan’s ambassador to Ethiopia, said the project is long overdue, and will help foster economic ties between the two countries.

But it has experienced difficulties getting off the ground, running more than two years over deadline, primarily because of financial sanctions on foreign payments imposed by the United States on Iranian banks.

This meant that the substation contractor, an Iranian firm called SUNIR International, had trouble obtaining credit and financing the project in US dollars. As a result, the Ethiopian government had to stump up an extra $3 million to expedite the work, money the Iranian company has agreed to refund later, Negash said.

KENYAN CRITICS

All eyes are now on a proposed Ethiopia-Kenya electric transmission line, which could bring Ethiopia closer to the East African community.

Historically, Ethiopia has had fewer trade ties with Kenya than with other East African nations, including war-torn Somalia, due to a combination of infrastructure problems and trade and tariff restrictions imposed by Addis Ababa.

The 500-kv transmission line connecting the Kenyan and Ethiopian grids is expected to be completed by the end of 2016 at a cost of up to $1.26 billion. It would make Kenya, which has the region’s largest industrial base, the largest buyer of Ethiopian power at an eventual 400 MW, and could allow Ethiopia to export up to 1,600 MW to countries further afield.

This project too has its critics, mainly on the Kenyan side. They say Kenyan leaders are brushing aside concerns about the controversial 1,870 MW Gibe III dam being built in southern Ethiopia, because of Nairobi’s desire to purchase power from Ethiopia to reduce power cuts and drive down electricity prices.

Kenyan and international NGOs, including Survival International, have warned that the project will displace tribal people in southern Ethiopia and northern Kenya, and could pose a serious threat to Lake Turkana, the world’s largest desert lake, in northeast Kenya.

According to Chinese news agency Xinhua, Prime Minister Raila Odinga said last year any problems caused by the dam would be temporary. The two governments have also set up a joint council to deal with matters arising from the use of the Omo River waters.

In June 2012, EEPCo brokered its fourth power export agreement with the newly independent country of South Sudan, to be undertaken in two phases. South Sudan, which has rich oil reserves, has depended on fossil fuels for its power supply.

CLIMATE UNCERTAINTIES

One key risk for Ethiopia’s power export strategy is climate change, which is likely to affect the flow of water in the rivers and dams driving hydro-power production. But there is still a high level of uncertainty over how this will play out.

Wondewossen Sintayehu, an official at Ethiopia’s Environmental Protection Authority (EPA), said more research is needed to establish the impacts of climate shifts and changes in precipitation on electricity generation. Smaller rivers are likely to be more vulnerable to any reduction in water levels or increase in pollution, whereas most hydro-power projects are being constructed on larger rivers such as the Nile and the Omo, he added.

So far, data has shown that climate change is leading to higher rainfall in general, which could be a positive factor for hydro-power production, he noted. But Ethiopia has more than 30 agro-ecological zones, and detailed studies are being carried out to analyse the effects of climate change on specific regions and the rivers that originate in them, Sintayehu said.

Sileshi Bekele, a senior water and climate specialist at the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), said climate extremes could have negative consequences for hydro-power projects.

A sustained drought period lasting for several years could lead to declines in production, while dams built without due attention to climate data could see their reservoirs and spillways unable to cope with water levels in times of flooding, he noted.

But he also emphasised the environmental benefits of hydropower schemes. They contribute to climate change mitigation, as they have negligible carbon emissions, and they can also help regenerate ecosystems, he said.

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By E.G. Woldegebriel / AlertNet.

E.G. Woldegebriel is a journalist based in Addis Ababa with an interest in environmental issues.

PHOTO:
REUTERS/Flora Bagenal

The post ALERTNET: Ethiopia Plans to Power East Africa with Hydro first appeared on MissionNewswire.