Africa

Campaign to eradicate polio makes real progress in countries most affected, Nigeria and India

by Celia W. Dugger New York Times April 6, 2010

JOHANNESBURG — A decade after the world’s original deadline for eradicating polio, the most tenacious bastions of the crippling virus — Nigeria and India — have recently shown remarkable progress in halting its spread, giving even some of the antipolio campaign’s severest doubters hope tha...

Hugh Masekela, 70, performing his “Songs of Migration,” a revival of, and tribute to, the music made by migrants who moved to Johannesburg to dig for gold in the early and middle years of the last century. Mr. Masekela is still haunted by the music that was everywhere during his childhood — wafting into his home as a musical group rehearsed nearby, rising in churches and school halls, and echoing across townships. When he returned to South Africa in 1990 after 30 years in exile, he said, “It wasn’t there anymore.”  Hear a song “Coal Train.”

Music, infused with sorrow and joy, in honor of migrants to South Africa

by Celia W. Dugger New York Times March 18, 2010

JOHANNESBURG — Hugh Masekela, the legendary trumpeter, blew his horn, sang with bluesy fervor and boogied across the stage on his puffy, 70-year old knees in his “Songs of Migration,” a revival of the music made by those who came from all over southern Africa to dig for gold and search for wor...

Mariama Adao and her last-born child. Photo: Anne Isabelle Leclercq/IRIN

Miriam Adou, who each year makes the trek from south to north Niger to work as a migrant laborer, and this year for the first time, brought 6 of 8 chi...

by IRIN News March 3, 2010

Mariama Adao, aged 40 and a mother of eight, makes the 400km journey from Matameye in the south of Niger to Agadez in the north almost every year to make ends meet between growing seasons. However, this year’s poor harvest forced her to leave earlier - and bring six of her children with her. ...

Hundreds of migrants from southern Niger are camped out in Agadez, Photo: Anne Isabelle Leclercq/IRIN

Hunger spreads to north Niger as poor migrant laborers from south Niger now bring their families that this year face starvation in the south

by IRIN News March 3, 2010

The unusually large-scale migration of southern Nigerien farmers and pastoralists, heading north to look for work, has prompted concerns about food shortages in the northern Agadez region, according to local authorities. ...

South African president Zuma ‘deeply regrets pain’ over love-child fathered with a woman who was not one of his wives

by IRIN News February 6, 2010

South African President Jacob Zuma has apologised for fathering a child with a woman who was not his wife....

One third of children in Sikasso are underweight for their age, and for acute malnutrition, the rate in Sikasso was 16 percent, according to the most recent government survey. Photo: Phuong Tran/ IRIN

In Mali’s richest region, Sikasso, malnutrition is as high as in the country’s barren north, due in large part to concentration on cash ...

by IRIN News December 29, 2009

Sikasso is one of Mali's most fertile regions, but under-five malnutrition is as high here as in the country’s barren north, according to government health data.Health workers and agricultural experts explain the paradox as a combination of a lack of nutritional awareness, and the concentration on...

Aid to African families that take in orphaned children gives alternative to orphanages

by Celia W. Dugger New York Times December 5, 2009

MCHINJI DISTRICT, Malawi — The Home of Hope orphanage provides Chikodano Lupanga, 15, with three nutritious meals a day, new school uniforms, sensible black shoes and a decent education....

Nigeria, once the worst-afflicted country in the world with an estimated 653,000 cases in 1989, appears to be free of guinea worm disease, which is a painful parasitic infection transmitted to humans through a  water supply contaminated with guinea worm larvae. Photo: Vanessa Vick/New York Times

Campaign to eradicate guinea worm in hard-hit Nigeria may have worked

by Donald G. McNeil Jr. New York Times December 5, 2009

After 20 years, the Carter Center is ready to declare a major victory in its war on guinea worm: Nigeria, once the worst-afflicted country in the world, appears to be free of the worms....

Ethiopian government inaction, repression, and obfuscation is a major cause of the developing Ethiopian famine (opinion)

by Alemayehu G. Mariam Huffington Post November 25, 2009

(November 25, 2009) It is hard to talk about Ethiopia these days in non-apocalyptic terms. Millions of Ethiopians are facing their old enemy again for the third time in nearly forty years. The black horseman of famine is stalking that ancient land. A year ago, Meles Zenawi's regime denied there was ...

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  • 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
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