FRONT PAGE: "Where Life's Start Is a Deadly Risk: Impoverished Tanzania Struggles to Save Mothers and Babies," by Denise Grady, New York Times, 24 May 2009.

GLOBAL UPDATE: "Giving a Deworming Drug to Girls Could Cut H.I.V. Transmission in Africa," by Donald G. McNeil Jr., New York Times, 26 May 2009.

Pregnancy and childbirth kill half a million women globally every year, with half just in Africa (and you know the vast bulk of the rest happen inside my Gap regions). Most are preventable, so where care exists in sufficient quantity and quality, this has stopped being an issue.

Like the deworming drug issue, the amount of money required to truly upgrade the situation globally is small.

The problem usually is staying power. When it comes in terms of public aid, local capacity tends to remain retarded: you fix something and then release your catch back into the wild to its fate. Thus, the overall impact is weak, despite the do-goodedness behind the act.

The real question, as always, is how to make the provision of basic medical care highly profitable in such environments. Create the profit possibility, and the care will follow. Keep it a matter of hit-or-miss public aid, and the Gap will remain a very deadly place--especially for women.