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Author: WHES
Afghanistan: Debt bondage ensnares entire families
KABUL, 16 May 2012 (IRIN) – Bonded labour in Afghanistan’s brick kilns is one of the most common forms of hazardous labour in the country. More than half of the brick kiln workers surveyed in a recent report by the International Labour Organization (ILO) were children, with most under 14. Few are getting any education to allow them to develop skills needed to break out of work in the kilns.
US ethanol policy costs Mexico $250 – 500 million each year, fuels hunger
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Food: Power to the people!
The UN Development Programme (UNDP) launched its first Africa Human Development Report today, stressing food security as a means to a better quality of life for all.
US trains troops for Somali fight
The heart of the Obama administration’s strategy for fighting al-Qaeda militants in Somalia can be found next to a cow pasture here, a thousand miles from the front lines.
Extended jobless benefits cut in eight states
More than 230,000 jobless Americans will lose their unemployment insurance by this weekend as reductions in the federal program that provides extended benefits to the long-term unemployed take broader effect.The new round of reductions is hitting eight states this month, meaning that about 400,000 long-term unemployed Americans in 27 states will have been cut off of the federal government’s extended unemployment benefits program this year, according to an analysis by the National Employment Law Project, which advocates for the unemployed.
Child survival up, but not enough
Global mortality among children younger than five years declined by 26 percent between 2000 and 2010 – meaning that the lives of some two million children were saved – but this is still not enough for many countries to meet the Millennium Development Goal of reducing deaths in this age group by two-thirds by 2015, according to recent US research.
South Korean report details alleged atrocities at North Korea’s prison camps
SEOUL — A South Korean government-funded human rights group has released a series of raw firsthand accounts of North Korea’s political prison camps, Seoul’s first comprehensive attempt to catalogue the atrocities that Pyongyang denies take place.
House bill offers $261 billion in cuts to programs helping struggling Americans in order to save military spending
WASHINGTON — The Republican-led House this week will lay bare the choice between social programs and Pentagon spending in an age of austerity when it takes up legislation to slice $261 billion from food stamps, Medicaid, social services and other programs for struggling Americans over the next decade to stave off more than $50 billion in military spending cuts scheduled to take effect next year.
Ethiopia: Too many deaths in childbirth
In Ethiopia, a lack of awareness of the importance of skilled hospital deliveries, cultural beliefs and transport challenges in rural areas are causing a high number of deaths during childbirth, say officials. Only 10% of deliveries take place within health facilities, according to the Ethiopia’s latest demographic health survey results. Nevertheless, the figure is a significant improvement on 6% in the previous survey, in 2005.
The health minister, Kesetebirhan Admasu, said: “About 60% of mothers who did not attend health facilities while giving birth do not see the benefit of delivering in health facilities, while the remaining 30% abstain from going there by giving culture and beliefs as their reason. That [the] majority of women did not appreciate the value of institutional delivery calls for a concerted effort to educate women and families about the importance of skilled birth attendance and postnatal care.”
