Kenyans in refugee camps fear returning home
Many Kenyans remain reluctant to leave the tents they have called home since election violence displaced them a year and a half ago — despite a call by Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki to fully close the camps today. Many of the refugees said they feared returning to the villages from which they fled and were holding out to receive a large plot of land, which they could settle in numbers.

Study: India cholera vaccine provides 70% protection
Trials indicate a cholera vaccine developed in India was effective in providing nearly 70% protection to children and others living in the Kolkata region, where the disease is widespread. Subjects receiving the vaccine, which was given orally in two doses, experienced no adverse side effects, according to a report in The Lancet.

Carter calls for effort to beat Caribbean malaria
The fight against malaria gained support in the Caribbean as former President Jimmy Carter called on foundations, health organizations and the governments of Haiti and the Dominican Republic to continue the work of a $200,000 pilot program launched by the Carter Center to combat the mosquito-borne disease. “One of the most important developments has been the new cooperation between the two countries,” Carter said. “A tiny bit of money can completely eradicate these diseases.”

Polio outbreaks prompts immunization of 8.5 million in Sudan
An outbreak of 45 polio cases in south Sudan has prompted the government and UN agencies to undertake the vaccination of 8.5 million children, the World Health Organization reports.

Pakistani officials condemn conditions of U.S. aid package
A five-year, $7.5 billion aid program proposed by the U.S. for Pakistan and praised by U.S. President Barack Obama and the U.S. Congress has met with stiff resistance from Pakistan’s political opposition and military, who argue the aid package interferes with Pakistani sovereignty. Pakistani officials reject various conditions attached to the legislation, including U.S. oversight of the spending and direction of promotions within the Pakistani military.

Malarial nets a rare “magic bullet” in global health
The distribution of malaria nets has served to prevent the spread of malaria in Africa, where the malaria parasite often proves resistant to cheap anti-malarial drugs. Though the nets have curbed the spread of malaria in nations such as Zambia, fewer than one in four African children sleeps under a malaria net, according to the World Health Organization. People who are infected with malaria — in particular children and pregnant women, who lack the proper immune systems to respond to the disease — must receive treatment within 24 hours of the onset of symptoms to prevent damage to internal organs.

Artificial hymen infuriates Egyptian clerics
Conservatives in Egypt have expressed outrage over the advent of the Artificial Virginity Hymen Kit, a device that would allow a woman — for the price of $29.90 — to recreate a false hymen to deceive a new husband that her hymen is still intact. Members of the conservative Muslim Brotherhood have called on a ban on the product, while a cleric issued a fatwa against its makers.

Report: 2,000 die daily from armed violence
As a UN General Assembly committee began mulling a draft resolution for a treaty that would set international conditions for the sale and transfer of conventional weapons, a report estimated the number of people dying each day from armed violence at more than one per minute. Of the 2,000 average daily victims since 2006, when many governments first embraced the need for worldwide restrictions in the arms trade, nearly 700,000 died in political violence, according to the Oxfam report.

UN report: “Best” countries should improve opportunities for migration
Citizens of Norway, Australia and Iceland had the best standard of living, according to the 2009 UN Development Report, which also urged destination countries to improve opportunities for migration by amending restrictive policies. Migrants from the least advantaged countries, the war- and disease-ravaged sub-Saharan African nations, see their incomes increase by 15-fold, double their enrollment rates in school and see child mortality cut by 16-fold, according to the report.