Neither left nor right has focused adequately on maternal health

The fact that people will pay you to talk to people and travel to interesting places and write about what intrigues you, I am just amazed by that.

Usually people are very much focused on keeping their kids alive.

If only women are talking about women's rights, then the issue has failed from the start. If you think about the Holocaust, that wasn't just a Jewish issue. Civil rights weren't just a black issue.

Sandy was particularly destructive because it was prevented from moving back out to sea by a "blocking pattern" associated with the jet stream. There's debate about this, but one recent study suggested that melting sea ice in the Arctic may lead to such blocking.

Half a million women die each year around the world in pregnancy. It's not biology that kills them so much as neglect.

A few countries like Sri Lanka and Honduras have led the way in slashing maternal mortality.