Children's News From Washington
DallasNews.com Editorial: Congress must override Obama on global AIDS fight
During his 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama vowed to add $1 billion annually to the U.S. fund that George W. Bush and Congress created to fight AIDS in Africa and other developing nations.
Instead, as president, Obama proposed only a $366 million increase for the coming fiscal year – which comes on top of another broken promise from last year. In 2009, he proposed spending only $165 million for PEPFAR, the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.
The New York Times: To Help Haiti’s Children
It is heartening to see the progress being made to build, for the first time, a strong education sector in Haiti. But, unfortunately, a critical piece is still absent.
Early childhood development programs that serve children from birth to age 8 would have an immense and lasting positive impact on both individual children and Haiti as a whole.
Children’s News from the World
Millions of Pakistani kids risk waterborne disease
Access to clean water has always been a problem in Pakistan, but the floods have made the situation much worse by breaking open sewer lines, filling wells with dirty water and displacing millions of people who have been forced to use the contaminated water around them.
The environment is especially dangerous for children, who are more vulnerable to diseases such as diarrhea and dysentery because they are more easily dehydrated. Many children in Pakistan also suffered from malnutrition before the floods hit, leaving them with weakened immune systems.
Newera.com.na: Many children succumb to preventable diseases
Although the past 50 years have seen a remarkable decline in child mortality, millions of children continue to die prematurely, and childhood continues to be a time of vulnerability due to a wide range of health risks.
The burden of disease is particularly severe in Africa, but it is also significant in the Eastern Mediterranean and South-East Asian regions, says a report by the World Health Organisation (WHO).
