MIDDLE EAST: New HIV report turns up some surprises

Photo: G Pirozzi/UNAIDS A women's group meets in Upper Egypt to discuss HIV/AIDS

DUBAI, 30 June 2010 (IRIN) - Statistics on the prevalence of HIV/AIDS in the Middle East are hard to come by but a new study launched on 28 June in the United Arab Emirates has attempted to gather all existing data into one place and add some analysis and action points for policymakers.



"In all previous reports we thought there was no HIV data from this region. But there turned out to be lots of data here," said Laith Abu Raddad, director of the Biostatistics and Biomathematic Research Core at Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar and the principal author of the study (not yet available online).



"This report is basically more like a scientific epidemiological study: Getting pieces of data, thousands of data that we managed to collect from every country in the region, putting them together and analysing them to see what they tell us in terms of HIV epidemiology," he said.



The report, characterizing the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the Middle East and North Africa, is a joint effort of the World Bank, the UN Joint Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the World Health Organization (WHO). It covers 23 countries that the three organizations include in their MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region. 

According to UNAIDS, about 412,000 people were living with HIV in

SOUTHERN AFRICA: Measles back with a vengeance

Photo: UNICEF/Kun Li Not enough children are being vaccinated

JOHANNESBURG, 28 June 2010 (IRIN) - "Out of sight, out of mind" explains why Southern Africa has been grappling with one of the biggest outbreaks of measles, a highly contagious viral disease, since 2009.



The outbreak has so far claimed 758 lives, mostly in Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, Namibia, Lesotho and South Africa. Ahmadu Yakubu, Regional Immunization Adviser at the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) told IRIN there had been lapses in the measles immunization programme because "countries were not seeing cases anymore".



Oladapo Walker, the Inter Country Support Coordinator for Eastern and Southern Africa at the World Health Organisation (WHO), told IRIN that at least 95 percent of all eligible children had not been vaccinated against the disease.



Walker said the outbreaks were "most likely the result of a build-up of susceptible children and adolescents who have missed immunization and escaped natural infection during the years of reduced transmission".



In developing countries, vaccination programmes are jointly funded by donors, but Yakubu said countries in the region had failed to raise adequate financial commitments because "there were no cases to report over the years", so they were unable to motivate funds.

In Brief: When donors receive - a tale of two CAPs

Photo: Mateusz Buczek/OCHA CAP launch

NAIROBI, 28 June 2010 (IRIN) - The aid world is an acronym jungle. Sometimes there are simply not enough good ones to go around, so they get used twice.



One of those is "CAP".



About 40%, some EUR55 billion (about US$76.5 billion in 2009 prices), of the EC's annual budget is spent on the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), a complex system of subsidy and support to farming in the bloc.



Meanwhile, appeals for some of the worst crises in

COTE D'IVOIRE: Nicaise Bouadou, "I could not grasp the child's hand"

Photo: Alexis Adele/IRIN Nicaise Bouadou

ABIDJAN, 25 June 2010 (IRIN) - When security officer Nicaise Bouadou, 43, heard the first drops of rain on his tin roof on the evening of 23 June in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire's commercial hub, he thought it was the typical start of the rainy season.



The cries of his neighbour's children woke him up. Frightened by the violent torrents that had rushed down the hill and set off a mudslide, adults frantically reached out, trying to grab something to steady themselves, while children hurled themselves into their parents' arms.

BP considering sales of assets in Argentina

The UK corporation is in deep trouble because of the Gulf of Mexico spill Zoom Image

BP said in March that it would sell assets totaling between 2 billion and 3 billion US dollars. In June the company increased that figure to up to 10 billion, and said it planned to sell assets over the next year.

A spokesman for BP declined to say which assets the company might be interested in selling.

“We're going through a process of identifying assets that we will sell or look to

Venezuela plans to nationalize a fleet of oil rigs from US corporation

President Chavez faces crucial legislative elections next September Zoom Image

President Chavez has made energy nationalization the linchpin in his 'Bolivarian revolution' and has also taken over assets in telecommunications, power, steel and banking. He has also advanced in land reform by taking over large farms and rich agricultural land, allegedly belonging to absentee landlords or owners lacking the ‘correct property documents’.

The 11 drilling rigs have been idle for months following a dispute over pending payments by Venezuela’s oil company PDVSA. Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez said the rigs,

KENYA-SOMALIA: Fatuma Mohamoud*, "No one believed he was abused"

Photo: Caterina Pino/IRIN Ahmed Mohamoud: "I dare not leave this house"

KAKUMA, 24 June 2010 (IRIN) - Ahmed Mohamoud* seems like a typical eight-year old boy. He is dressed in jeans and sneakers and wears a hat of the New Orleans Saints, the team that won the US Super Bowl this year. Mohamed fled from the Hawiye area of Banadir region, not far from Mogadishu, with his parents. IRIN met Ahmed in Kakuma, northwestern Kenya, where his mother Fatuma agreed to tell IRIN their story.



"We arrived in Kenya in January 2009. We were first in Dadaab [refugee camp in northeastern Kenya]. After some time we were relocated to Kakuma. Mohamed, who is my only son, started going to the madrasa [Islamic school] inside the camp and not too far from our home here.



"He loved it and always said his dream was to teach the Koran to others. In May 2009, Ahmed was coming back home from the madrasa when he met one