China parents press demands in wake of milk sentences
Chinese parents of children stricken by toxic milk pressed compensation demands Friday, a day after a court sentenced two people to death and jailed 19 over the scandal in which six infants died.
China sentences two to death over tainted milk
A Chinese court on Thursday sentenced two men to death for their role in a tainted milk scandal that killed at least six children, while the woman most widely blamed for the tragedy got life in jail. Nearly 300,000 children fell ill last year after drinking milk intentionally laced with melamine, a toxic industrial compound that can give a fake positive on protein tests.
Gates Foundation donates $255 million to fight polio
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation pledged $255 million to fight polio, the potential killer that still cripples children in parts of Africa and Asia. The pledge was part of a $630 million package, including funds from the British and German governments, according to a statement released today by the Seattle-based Gates Foundation. The money will go to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, whose partners include Rotary International, a service organization based in Evanston, Illinois. The foundation earlier said it aims to prevent the onset of new polio cases globally by 2010 and to ensure the eradication of the virus three years later, but the foundation no longer is holding to that timetable.
Congolese displaced by Ugandan rebels to receive UN aid
The flood of Congolese civilians fleeing raids by the Ugandan rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) are in dire need of food, shelter, medicines, clothes and other aid items, and United Nations’ relief will begin reaching them tomorrow despite immense logistical challenges, the Organization's refugee agency said. "This remote and increasingly unstable area poses immense logistical challenges for aid agencies due to the lack of roads or their poor condition,” Ron Redmond, spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said, following renewed assaults in the north-east Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) over the past week
GUINEA: Changing the odds for blind students
Most blind people in Guinea end up uneducated and begging in the streets, say government officials, who are working to change this by training teachers in mainstream schools to better teach blind students. Guinea's Ministry of Social Affairs hopes in the next two to three years to train some 140 teachers to teach blind students and those with other disabilities, according to Mohamed Camara, the ministry's chief of integrated education and president of the Guinean Association to Promote the Rights of the Handicapped. The government signed the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in February 2008.
Walk-out closes Kenya's schools
Unions in Kenya have declared the first day of a nationwide walk-out by some 230,000 teachers “100 percent successful.” A BBC correspondent in Nairobi says some primary school pupils found their classes empty and so played or tried to give each other lessons. Billed as the “mother of all strikes.” the open-ended action follows the collapse of pay negotiations. The education minister said the strike was illegal and blamed teachers, saying they kept changing their position. On Sunday the government had urged parents to take their children to school despite the threat of industrial action.
SUDAN: Western Equatoria struggling with influx of refugees and IDPs
The Southern Sudanese state of Western Equatoria has registered thousands of refugees and displaced civilians but lacks the resources to support them, officials said. “Children with malaria and pneumonia have no access to medicines and medical facilities; food supplies are getting very low even for the local inhabitants; most displaced persons have no shelter and the situation is likely to get worse after the onset of the coming rainy season.” The refugees fled a Ugandan government-led offensive in December 2008 against Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), while the others fled attacks on their homes by cattle-raiders from neighboring Ethiopia.
Zimbabwe receives $5 million boost from UNICEF in fight against cholera outbreak
UNICEF announced a USD 5 million donation for Zimbabwe's besieged health sector to help it battle an out-of-control cholera epidemic and the effects of collapsing health services. The death toll in the cholera outbreak has now topped 2,000, with over half the estimated 40,000 diagnosed cases in Harare. "The cholera outbreak is the tip of the iceberg,” said UNICEF Executive Director Ann M. Veneman while visiting Zimbabwe last week. Zimbabwe's defunct health system and the growing humanitarian crisis have had a devastating impact on the lives of children, particularly those who are orphaned or vulnerable, and UN officials have warned that child mortality rates will continue to rise.
Energy needs to be part of global poverty battle
Ensuring energy supplies to the poor should have been included as a Millennium Development Goal, and the exclusion of this element adversely affects the global fight against poverty, Rajendra Pachauri, head of the United Nations climate panel, said Wednesday.
Sri Lanka: continuing conflict sparks UN concern over fate of children
The United Nations is increasingly concerned for the well-being of tens of thousands of civilians caught up in the conflict raging in the northern Vanni area of Sri Lanka pitting Government forces against the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the world body's humanitarian chief said Jan. 16. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimates that around 230,000 people have been displaced due to intensified fighting in the north of the country during the second half of 2008.
Injured Gaza children in Belgium
Six seriously injured Palestinian children have been flown to Belgium from the war-torn Gaza Strip for treatment in Brussels hospitals. The children were airlifted on a Belgian military plane, which brought them from El-Arish, an Egyptian town about 60km (37 miles) from Gaza. Belgian media say the children's ages range from two and a half to 18 years. Each child is accompanied by a parent. More than 200 Belgians have offered to accommodate the parents, reports say.
YEMEN: What is blocking progress on MMR?
The maternal mortality rate (MMR) remains high as a result of poor health care and harmful social practices, including child marriage and female genital mutilation, a UNICEF official in Yemen has said. Eight women or girls die from pregnancy or childbirth complications every day in Yemen; globally the figure is 1,500. According to UNICEF, the lifetime risk of maternal death in Yemen is 1:39, making it the highest in the Middle East. At the same time Yemen has the lowest percentage of births in the Middle East at which a skilled attendant is present: Delivery care coverage is 36 percent, and 24 percent of births take place in hospitals.
Pakistani Taliban blow up schools in Swat
Pakistan's Swat valley destroyed four schools there in response to the government's vow to reopen the facilities. Teachers are reluctant to return to schools, which have been closed for a winter break, following the violence. “If they’re destroying schools during a curfew, they can do anything,” said the president of the Swat teachers association. “Militants blew up two girls schools and two boys schools,” a top government official in the valley, Shaukat Yousafzai, told Reuters. “Attacks on troops are understandable but why are they destroying schools?” Yousafzai said the militants had destroyed 170 schools in the valley where about 55,000 girls and boys were enrolled in government-run institutions.
