Condom use not catching on among youth, in spite of massive spending on efforts to counter HIV/AIDS, experts warn that many young Thais are still having unsafe sex. “Many people know HIV is transmitted by having sex,” he said. “We also know we should stand up and give our seat to old people on the bus, but we don't do it,” Sittichok Chaisupasin, a 16-year-old peer educator.
Typhoon Fengshen death toll rises to 224, as it moved out of the Philippines on 23 June towards China, leaving at least 224 dead, hundreds missing and thousands homeless, according to the Philippine National Red Cross and Office of Civil Defence. Heavy rains and winds of up to 195km an hour caused landslides, flash floods and storm surges.
Landmines impede civilians’ return to volatile Arghandab, as dozens of landmines have been discovered in Arghandab District, in the southern province of Kandahar. It is estimated that some 60 people, many of which are children, are killed each month in the country by landmines. Millions of landmines were dumped across Afghanistan in the 1980s and 1990s, killing and wounding over 70,000 people so far, according to the United Nations Mine Action Centre for Afghanistan (UNMAC). In other news, insecurity, uncertainty stop return of Afghan refugees, from Pakistan. The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has repatriated 3.3 million Afghans since 2002, including 120,000 from Pakistan in 2008, but some two million registered Afghan refugees remain in Pakistan. The number of unregistered refugees is unknown.
US accuses LRA of abuses, calls for a quick peaceful solution. “The United States condemns the recent LRA attacks on Sudanese Peoples’ Liberation Army forces at Nabanga, Sudan, and elsewhere, as well as the LRA's abductions and other abuses of innocent civilians in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic and Southern Sudan,” said a statement issued on 18 June. Along with four of his commanders Kony is charged by the ICC with carrying out abductions, killings, rape and conscription of Ugandan children as fighters among other war crimes. Some 30,000 children in northern Uganda have been abducted and forcibly inscripttion into the LRA. Government welcomes Kony's "change of heart" but rules out more talks; "We only hope that he will put his pronouncement into practice. We note, however, that negotiations were concluded and there will not be a re-opening of the negotiations whatsoever," Capt Chris Magezi, spokesman for the government delegation, said on 23 June.