Updates

The Live & Living MDG 5 Shadow Report is an interactive, web-based report on the progress of the Millennium Development Goals 3 & 5 in twelve countries in Asia. The countries covered include the South Asian countries of Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan; the Southeast Asian countries of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines; the Mekong countries of Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam as well as the East Asian country of China.

By Joanne Omang

WASHINGTON, June 9 – Cell phone networks, edu-tainment, basketball teams, at least one kidney and great helpings of courage in the face of threats and even murder are bringing young people to the cutting edge of political change for women worldwide, a Women Deliver 2010 panel discussion demonstrated today.

Sarah Nkhoma of Malawi told the 3,000 conference participants that organizing university students to speak realistically about HIV/AIDS risks and sexual behavior earned her an arrest and a severe beating that left her hospitalized. “People don’t want to deal with the fact that young people have sex,” she said. “They owe me a kidney.”  more...

By Joanne Omang

WASHINGTON, June 8 – Half a century after U.S. approval of the birth control pill, a contraceptive is pending for men that may also prevent baldness.

The Women Deliver 2010 conference here learned today that other contraceptives in the research pipeline include invisible gels to rub onto the skin, and vaginal rings that would prevent HIV infection as well as pregnancy. At a morning plenary and subsequent news conference, however, researchers stressed that nothing yet looks like the contraceptive panacea that the birth control pill did not turn out to be either.  more...