Africa

NaTchuto gains power in Guinea-Bissau–US government considers him a major figure in the international drug trade

by Adam Nossiter New York Times May 25, 2010

BISSAU, Guinea-Bissau — For months, as the United States Treasury Department prepared to declare him a drug kingpin and a major figure in the international narcotics trade, Rear Adm. José Américo Bubo Na Tchuto was hiding out in the unlikeliest of places — living in the United Nations building...

Loggers at Masoala National Park. In the past year, the illicit trade in a scarce species of rosewoods has increased at least 25-fold. Photo: Toby Smith/Reportage by Getty Images

Shaky rule in Madagascar threatens trees

by Barry Bearak New York Times May 25, 2010

MAROANSETRA, Madagascar — Exploiting a political crisis, Malagasy timber barons are robbing this island nation of its sylvan heritage, illegally cutting down scarce species of rosewood trees in poorly protected national parks and exporting most of the valuable logs to China....

Wilbroda Wandera.  Photo: Jane Some/IRIN

A recipe for extreme hunger: How a Kenyan woman feeds her family of ten when she has 40 shillings (50 cents)

by IRIN News May 14, 2010

(Kiberia, Kenya. May 14, 2010) Widowed 16 years ago, Wilbroda Aoko Wandera, 48, has had to become creative with the little she has, at times spending just 40 shillings (US$0.50) to feed her family of 10. She has no steady job and sells spinach, plaits hair and washes clothes for a fee. She spoke to...

Analysis: What is a famine?

by IRIN News May 13, 2010

Aid agencies and donors have warned of the possibility of a famine in Niger, evoking images of the last food crisis in the Sahelian country in 2005. Some media organizations have already pronounced the current crisis a famine. So, what exactly is a famine? ...

The wavering war on AIDS (opinion)

by New York Times May 13, 2010

The global war on AIDS has racked up enormous successes over the past decade, most notably by providing drugs for millions of infected people in developing countries who would be doomed without this life-prolonging treatment. Now the campaign is faltering....

Dinavance Kamukama, 28, front right, with her cousins in Kampala, Uganda. She is on a waiting list for AIDS medication. Uganda is the first country where major clinics routinely turn people away, but it will not be the last. In Kenya next door, grants to keep 200,000 on drugs will expire soon. An American-run program in Mozambique has been told to stop opening clinics. There have been drug shortages in Nigeria and Swaziland. Tanzania and Botswana are trimming treatment slots, according to a report by the medical charity Doctors Without Borders.

In Uganda, AIDS war is falling apart–prevention is failing and there is no new money for anti-retroviral drugs

by Donald G. McNeil Jr. New York Times May 9, 2010

KAMPALA, Uganda — On the grounds of Uganda’s biggest AIDS clinic, Dinavance Kamukama sits under a tree and weeps. Her disease is probably quite advanced: her kidneys are failing and she is so weak she can barely walk. Leaving her young daughter with family, she rode a bus four hours to the ho...

White House is being pressed to reverse course and join landmine ban

by Mark Landler New York Times May 7, 2010

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration, under intense political pressure from Capitol Hill and elsewhere, is engaged in a vigorous debate over whether to reverse course and join an international treaty banning land mines, administration officials said this week....

HALO Trust Mozambique: An instructor teaches new recruits about landmines. The instructor is holding a small mine, known as a “toepopper”, designed to blow a foot off.   Photo: Guy Oliver/IRIN
Most women in sub-Saharan Africa give birth with no skilled health worker present. Photo: Anne-Isabelle Leclercq/IRIN

Global: The worst places to be a mother

by IRIN News May 7, 2010

Eight of the bottom 10-ranked countries in Save the Children’s annual Mothers Index, which ranks the best and worst places to be a mother, are in sub-Saharan Africa, says the NGO. ...

A woman and her baby at the government hospital in Makeni, Sierra Leone. In Sierra Leone one in five children die before age five and one in eight women die from pregnancy-related complications, according to the UN Children’s Fund. Photo: Nancy Palus/IRIN

Sierra Leone inaugurates free health care for women and children, but major gaps in health care services remain

by IRIN News April 27, 2010

Donors and NGOs welcomed the Sierra Leone government’s launch on 27 April of free health care for some 1.5 million women and children, but health experts say it is just one step in a long, complex process as critical gaps in the health system remain....

  • World Hunger Education
    Service
    P.O. Box 29015
    Washington, D.C. 20017
  • For the past 50 years, since its founding in 1976, the mission of World Hunger Education Service is to undertake programs, including Hunger Notes, that
    • Educate the general public and target groups about the extent and causes of hunger and malnutrition in the United States and the world
    • Advance comprehension which integrates ethical, religious, social, economic, political, and scientific perspectives on the world food problem
    • Facilitate communication and networking among those who are working for solutions
    • Promote individual and collective commitments to sustainable hunger solutions.