Companies have dramatically cut training programs for new employees, experts say, worsening a skills gap that’s keeping them from finding qualified job candidates and pushing up unemployment.
Author: WHES
Uganda: Weaning Karamoja off food aid
Uganda’s arid northeastern Karamoja region has been dependent on food aid for decades, but new programmes by the government and its partners aim to bring an end to the cycle of relief and see the traditionally nomadic Karimojong become more self-sufficient through more settled livelihoods.
decades on, US starts cleanup of Agent Orange in Vietnam
DA NANG, Vietnam — In the tropical climate of central Vietnam, weeds and shrubs seem to grow everywhere — except here.Forty years after the United States stopped spraying herbicides in the jungles of Southeast Asia in the hopes of denying cover to Vietcong fighters and North Vietnamese troops, an air base here is one of about two dozen former American sites that remain polluted with an especially toxic strain of dioxin, the chemical contaminant in Agent Orange that has been linked to cancers, birth defects and other diseases.
Mali: Not a fragile state yet
Drissa Keita, 42, fled south to Bamako, the capital of Mali, with 18 family members when Islamist extremists overran Gao in the northeast in early April. Once a civil servant, he now lives eight to a room in his brother’s house, without electricity. “Conditions are very difficult… I want to return – all of my children were born in Gao – but we can’t go back [while it is] under the current regime.”
Kenya: Urban poor face rising food insecurity
Food insecurity is common in many rural parts of northern Kenya, but the country’s rapidly growing urban population is increasingly also dealing with food insecurity, according to experts.
After 14 years, Philippines moves forward with bill to improve contraceptive access
MANILA — Despite opposition from the powerful Roman Catholic Church, a bill that would mandate sex education in schools and subsidize contraceptives moved ahead on Monday after being stalled in the Philippine Congress for 14 years.
Food: Price shock hotspots
As global grain prices begin to climb, the Sahel countries of West Africa, those in the Horn, and in central and southern Africa – many of which depend mainly on imported cereals to feed their people – are most exposed to the impact of more expensive food, said the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
Saying Mali ‘Is our country,’ militias train to oust Islamists
MOPTI, Mali — Hundreds of young men are stuffed into makeshift training camps near this provincial capital, arising at 4 a.m. for physical exercises and simulated hand-to-hand combat in preparation for the day when they can free their north Mali homeland from the radical Islamists whose harsh rule has driven tens of thousands of frightened, desperate civilians to flee the country.
Activists in India attempt to rescue children from being sold into slavery
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US added 163,000 jobs in July; unemployment rate ticks up to 8.3 percent
The United States added 163,000 jobs in July but the monthly unemployment rate nonetheless inched up to 8.3, a contradictory pair of figures that illustrate the muddled state of the economy.
