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/ 12 May 2008

US flies cyclone aid to Burma

The first United States military aid flight landed in Burma on Monday, but relief supplies continued to just dribble into the reclusive state nine days after a cyclone. A C-130 military transport plane left Thailand’s Vietnam war-era U-Tapao airbase carrying 12 700kg of water, mosquito nets and blankets.

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/ 1 May 2008

‘DC Madam’ hangs herself in mother’s shed

The ”DC Madam,” whose arrest for running a high-end prostitution ring sent sex-scandal tremors through the United States capital, hanged herself on Thursday in a shed at her mother’s house, police said. Deborah Jeane Palfrey was convicted last month on federal racketeering charges for running the prostitution ring for the rich, famous and powerful.

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/ 2 March 2008

Food aid slashed as price of grain soars

International aid agencies on Saturday called for emergency food programmes to be overhauled as the soaring price of grain and other staple crops threatens to bring further misery to many parts of the developing world. The call came after it emerged that the United States is to slash the amount of food aid it gives to some of the poorest countries in the world.

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/ 18 February 2008

Microbicide trial failure deals blow to Aids war

An anti-Aids gel that had reached the final phase of testing was unable to prevent the transmission of HIV, research NGO and non-profit organisation the Population Council said on Monday. It said the third phase of the clinical trials into the product found it ineffective in preventing male-to-female HIV transmission during vaginal intercourse.

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/ 2 January 2008

Gunmen kill US official in Sudan

Gunmen killed a United States government aid agency official and his driver in Khartoum on Tuesday, US and Sudanese officials said. The unknown assailants opened fire as the official from the US Agency for International Development was heading home in an embassy vehicle shortly after midnight on New Year’s Day, diplomatic sources said.

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/ 2 December 2007

Fight against Aids: ‘We must do more’

Activists and global leaders used World Aids Day on Saturday to warn against complacency in fighting the disease and called on governments to fill a multibillion-dollar funding gap. ”We have made tangible and remarkable progress on all these fronts. But we must do more,” United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said.

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/ 1 December 2007

Signs of progress on World Aids Day

Activists on Saturday sought to keep the battle against HIV in the public eye on World Aids Day in the face of growing complacency amid progress in treating and slowing the spread of the disease. The December 1 event is traditionally a time of grim stocktaking as Aids campaigners sound the alarm over the disease’s rampage through Africa.

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/ 20 November 2007

All cyclone-hit areas reached in Bangladesh

Relief workers and the Bangladesh military on Tuesday reached the last remaining pockets of the country devastated by a cyclone that killed nearly 3 500 people along the Bay of Bengal. It has taken five days to gain access to the hardest-hit areas in an operation involving helicopters, planes and boats.

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/ 10 October 2007

Outraged Iraqis condemn killings by foreign guards

Iraqi authorities on Wednesday condemned the killing in Baghdad of two women by foreign security guards, as the firm which hired the contractors defended its action. Tuesday’s bloodbath comes just days after Iraq vowed to punish United States security firm Blackwater after a probe found that its guards opened "deliberate" fire in Baghdad three weeks ago.