News…
Malaria battle gains mainstream popularity through the “Nothing But Nets” program. The program for which a mere $10 buys an insecticide-treated bed net, has united people and organizations from all walks of life in the battle against malaria and helped make charitable action a wildly popular undertaking, The New York Times reports. Supporters that have rallied to the cause include the United Nations Foundation, the National Basketball Association, the TV show “American Idol” and more than 70,000 individual donors.
A three-day United Nations food conference in Rome ended Thursday, June 5th, with calls for urgent steps to boost food production and halt soaring prices. The global food crisis overshadowed the conference, originally organized to address climate change and biofuels. Conference organizers criticized the U.S. for policies they said contribute to inflating food prices, such as subsidies for wealthy farmers and trade restrictions on food (The New York Times).
HIV rates for women decline in South Africa, as health officials in South Africa have announced that the percentage of pregnant women diagnosed with the HIV virus declined to 28% last year from the 2006 rate of 29.2%. The overall rate for women aged 25-29 infected with HIV was 37.9%, down from 38.7% in 2006. South Africa still has the highest number of AIDS victims in the world at 5.4 million.
Myanmar survivors forced to work for food, Amnesty International alleged Thursday, that the country’s military leadership is forcing cyclone survivors to work for food rations as it continues to evict them from aid shelters and camps. The situation, the group said, is not only violating survivors’ basic rights but is further endangering the lives of tens of thousands.
Child labor in Malawi encouraged by poor record keeping, as legislation compelling birth registrations has been delayed by government infighting and the resultant political turmoil. This failure to More than a million Malawian children are still being used as laborers, according to the latest available estimates. The colonial-era 1904 Birth and Deaths Act, which does not require citizens to be registered at birth, nor deaths to be reported to the authorities, is still in force. Consequently, even though Malawi is a signatory to numerous conventions against child labor, including the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of a Child, the 1973 International Labour Organisation (ILO) Convention 138 (setting a minimum working age of 18), and the 1999 ILO Convention 182 (outlawing child labor), child protection officers cannot verify the ages of people suspected of being employed as child laborers.