One of the world's largest foreign aid organizations just announced it will be forced to make substantial program cuts this year. For hundreds of thousands of people, the consequences could be lethal.

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria announced in late November that it had failed to raise the minimum $13 billion needed to support current operations. This is terrible news -- fully 70% of anti-retroviral HIV/AIDS drugs available in poor countries are provided by the fund.

Few things are more misunderstood than mental illness.  People once thought mental illness was caused by demon possession, sin or witchcraft. Often the mentally ill were cruelly mistreated or killed.  You might think those days are long over, but superstition and ignorance are hard to overcome. It wasn’t so long ago that we were taught that our secret thoughts and fears caused mental disorders. Until recently, treatment for mental illness happened in distant and dismal state run asylums (think about “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” – that isn’t far off the mark). The mentally ill were feared and shunned. But in the last 20 years, things have changed dramatically.

TOKYO (Apr. 15) -- In an event organized with the Department of Tourism (DOT), the Philippine Embassy opened the Philippine Food Festival 2009 at the Hilton Tokyo in Shinjuku on April 13.

The 10-day event, which started with a sit-down buffet dinner featuring the culinary talents of Chef Myrna Segismundo, was attended by Filipino and Japanese VIPs.

AMSTERDAM (March 16) - Woven Chic, an exhibition of Philippine-made handbags designed by internationally acclaimed Filipino designer Cora Jacob opened March 5 at the Museum of Bags and Purses (Tessanmuseum Hendrikje) in Gentleman's Canal, Amsterdam.

Cora Jacob or Cora Jacobs, as she is known internationally, has earned the title in the Philippines and in fashion capitals around the world as the "Indigenous Genius". The lawyer-turned designer took New York by storm during the 80's when her Ecologically-Chic handbags made of raw materials from the Philippines like bamboo, jute, raffia (grass), sugarcane, shells, beads and leather, landed on the shelves of high fashion stores like Bloomingdale''s and Sak's Fifth Avenue.

LOS ANGELES - Concerned with the slow progress of TV networks in the area of diversity casting, the Asian Pacific American Media Coalition (APAMC) has released its 2011 report cards grading the networks’ past 2010-2011 season while simultaneously challenging ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC to cast at least one Asian Pacific American actor as the main star in a TV show within the next three years.

If novelist, poet and national hero Jose Rizal was alive today, would he be joining the protests against human rights violations and the continuing deterioration of the Filipino people’s economic well-being?

Chances are, yes.

Last week, University of the Philippines professors Judy Taguiwalo and Sarah Raymundo posited that when Rizal was 23 and studying in Madrid, Spain, the young doctor saw nothing amiss about joining protests. Arkibong Bayan editor Mon Ramirez was a also quick to post a website wherein Rizal’s letters were archived.

Barely two years into the job and United States Ambassador to the Philippines Harry Thomas Jr. is smitten with everything Filipino. He’s tried ‘balut’ and ‘lambanog’ and swears he likes them.

“I couldn’t be more than a few weeks without Filipino food,” he told a Filipino American crowd gathered at the Asia Society in Washington D.C. ‘Adobo,’ he confessed, is his favorite Philippine dish.

Serious mental illness is scary and off-putting even for the healthiest among us, but for those afflicted it’s a thousand times worse.  They’re often isolated, misunderstood and adrift from lives that once felt purposeful.  Sometimes they even hear voices and suffer terrifying delusions.  And it isn’t just the sick person who suffers – mental illness can and often does devastate

whole families.  Part of what hurts, of course, is the illness itself, and, for families, the loss of a fully functioning loved one.  But when you add to that the suffering caused by stigma and shame, and the resulting secrecy that keeps whole families from asking for help, you have a truly vicious cycle.