sub-Saharan Africa

Asia has been the base for some extremely successful large-scale HIV prevention programmes. Well-funded, politically supported campaigns in Thailand and Cambodia have led to significant declines in HIV-infection levels, and HIV prevention aimed at sex workers and their clients has played a large role in these achievements. In Tamil Nadu, India, HIV prevention initiatives have had a substantial impact. High-profile public campaigns discouraged risky sexual behaviour, made condoms more widely available, and provided STI testing and treatment for people who needed them. These efforts resulted in a large decline in risky sex.10

"WASHINGTON (AFP) – Some 700 million people worldwide, or more than all the adults of North and South America combined, think the grass is greener on the other side of the fence and want to permanently move to another country, a poll showed Tuesday.
Residents of sub-Saharan African countries were the most likely to want to move abroad permanently, the polls conducted in 135 countries between 2007 and this year by Gallup showed.
On average, 38 percent of the adult population in sub-Saharan Africa, or around 165 million people, said they would up stakes and head for another country if they had the chance.
The most popular destination was the United States, where nearly a quarter of the 700 million -- around 165 million people -- said they would like to settle.

The global Muslim population stands at 1.57 billion, meaning that nearly 1 in 4 people in the world practice Islam, according to a report Wednesday billed as the most comprehensive of its kind.

The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life report provides a precise number for a population whose size has long has been subject to guesswork, with estimates ranging anywhere from 1 billion to 1.8 billion.

1. Thou Shalt Learn to Enjoy Whisk(e)y - Bourbon, Scotch, Irish, Tennessee whiskey and every other form of the drink shall heretofore be your best buddy. You can start by mixing with soda at first to ween yourself into it if you need to (Jim Beam and Coke is a perfectly acceptable manly drink), but at some point you’re going to have to learn to drink the stuff on its own. It’s a complex, mysterious and brooding spirit, which are not coincidentally three things you as a man should also strive to be. This commandment is the most important, and the hardest to get through, which is why it’s first. If you can master the ways of Daniels, Walker, Dickel, Jameson and Glenlivet…the rest of this should be cake.

Report highlights hunger in India

The government says improvements have been made to food distribution
India is emerging as the world centre of hunger and malnutrition, a report by Indian campaign group, the Navdanya Trust, says.
The trust says that there are more than 200 million people - or one-in-four Indians - going without enough to eat.
The prominent environmentalist Vandana Shiva, who runs the trust, said there were now more hungry people in India than in sub-Saharan Africa.

source: http://news.bbc.co.u...

Every year the same old story.....What should we do ??? Is it time to change our strategy..

As famine sweeps through sub-Saharan Africa, many people in industrialized countries are asking why. Not why the rains don’t come. But why people hang on to a way of life that is punctuated with devastating drought and famine.

Some organizations in Africa including Christian Children’s Fund (CCF) are working to change agricultural practices that inevitably contribute to a cycle of drought, famine and death.

New Delhi:

India now is ahead of only Sub-Saharan Africa among developing countries in terms of the percentage of population below the poverty line, though it fared better than China on this count in 1990, according to the World Bank.

The multilateral lender, in its recently released report 'Global Economic Prospects for 2009', said a quarter of India's population will be living in extreme poverty, on less than USD 1.25 a day, in 2015.

The corresponding figures for China is 6.1 per cent and for Sub-Saharan Africa 37.1 per cent. These are based on purchasing power parity exchange rates derived from the 2005 price surveys, meaning that the calculations have been made assuming a dollar's purchasing power to be the same in the years under consideration as in 2005.

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http://news.yahoo.co...

On Africa trip, pope says condoms won't solve AIDS

YAOUNDE, Cameroon – Pope Benedict XVI said condoms are not the answer to the AIDS epidemic in Africa and can make the problem worse, setting off criticism Tuesday as he began a weeklong trip to the continent where some 22 million people are living with HIV.

Benedict's first statement on an issue that has divided even Catholic clergy working with AIDS patients came hours before he arrived in Cameroon's capital — greeted by thousands of flag-waving faithful who stood shoulder-to-shoulder in red dirt fields and jammed downtown streets for a glimpse of the pontiff's motorcade.