Chinese babies stolen by officials for foreign adoption
Though conventional wisdom says many of the thousands of Chinese babies who have been adopted since the early 1990s were abandoned by their parents because of Chinese family-size restrictions and the traditional preference for boys, harrowing stories of coercion are emerging among parents whose children were forcefully taken to adoption services. Parents say Chinese officials were motivated by the $3,000 that adoption services pay orphanages per child.

Somali rebels tell schools to scrap U.N. textbooks
Somali rebel leaders warned parents to keep their children away from schools using textbooks supplied by UN agencies, saying the books contained un-Islamic content. The warning came days after the extremist al Shabaab group carried out a bold suicide attack on African Union peacekeepers in Mogadishu that left 17 dead.

Yemen fighting spreads, civilians living under bridges-UN
The condition of civilians impacted by the latest in a series of conflicts between rebels and the Yemen government has reached “alarming and unprecedented levels,” while an appeal for aid to help them has gone unheeded, according to a report by UNHCR, the UN relief agency. The civilians, most of whom are women and children, are in extreme need of food, water and shelter because of high daily temperatures and heavy nightly rains.

New approach could stop 6 mln African malaria cases
As many as 6 million cases of malaria could be prevented in African infants by administering a continuous course of antimalarial medication to prevent infection and enhance immunity, according to a study of 8,000 African children and babies published in The Lancet. “International policymakers and heads of national malaria control programs should consider its immediate adoption and integration into existing program,” one researcher said.

Kenya begins huge slum clearance
Kenyan officials are preparing to undertake a massive effort to clear out the continent’s largest slum: the Kibera settlement in Nairobi. Authorities plan to move some 1 million people into nearby apartments, hoping to alleviate drastic overcrowding and the attendant crime rates and sanitation shortfalls. Some residents and slumlords are resisting the plan, citing legal claims to the land.

Polio defeats Canada’s pet project
Canada’s humanitarian goal of eliminating polio in Afghanistan by the end of the year appears to be out of reach because of escalating violence in the war-torn nation.

Polio makes a return to remote, destitute Afghanistan
Teams of UNICEF volunteers are going house to house to immunize children in Afghanistan’s impoverished Ghor region, where polio has seen a resurgence. The effort is the latest of four nationwide campaigns aimed at immunizing some 7.5 million children who received inadequate care while Taliban insurgents were in control of the country.
Lord’s Resistance Army terrorises Congo after Ugandan crackdown
Forced out of Uganda by a military force acting in cooperation with Congo and Sudan, the Lord’s Resistance Army has fled Uganda and spread into areas in the Democratic Republic of Congo in which it has not previously operated — terrorizing once relatively peaceful regions. In the past year, the LRA has killed more than 1,200 Congolese civilians, and more than 2,000 Congolese — many of them children — are reported missing.

Indonesian rights groups condemn new stoning law
The legislature in Indonesia’s Aceh province unanimously has approved an Islamic law that makes adultery punishable by stoning and permits 400 lashes for child rape and 100 lashes for homosexuality. The law replaces sections of the Indonesian criminal code only weeks before a new, less fundamentalist provincial assembly is scheduled to be seated. “The laws that have been approved in Aceh are cruel and degrading to humanity,” said Ifdhal Kasim of the National Commission on Human Rights.

Zimbabwe deal leads to few changes for pupils
UNICEF unveiled a $70 million program in Zimbabwe designed to repair the nation’s failed school system. One textbook might be shared by as many as 10 students, if they have access to textbooks at all. Nearly 50% of students don’t go on to high school.