Habari Gani?

   Read through these interesting articles and find out what's happening in the motherland. I'm going to continue wasting my brain away on Afro Samurai whilst you all enhance yours with what's going on in the world.


   News on Famine

   "The extreme drought has destroyed crops and caused the death of 80% of the livestock. For most Somalis who live a pastoral lifestyle, these conditions amount to an American losing their home, job and all worldly possessions, with no food or water available to beg for or borrow.

   At the Dadaab camp along the Kenya-Somalia border, more than 1,600 refugees arrived on the day of our visit, bringing the total past 50,000 for the past month. Designed for 90,000 people, the camp is swollen beyond capacity with 430,000. Another 45,000, typically malnourished with crippled immune systems, wait outside the camp with little water, no sanitation, minimal health care and only makeshift shelter."

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On Medicine

   "Until now HIV patients had to wait until their CD4** counts were below 200. The World Health Organization recommended the higher threshold in November 2009.

   South African HIV activists became frustrated when a few months later, the government updated the national HIV treatment guidelines to allow only HIV-positive pregnant mothers and those co-infected with tuberculosis (TB) to access treatment at the WHO-recommended CD4 levels."

**CD4 cells (or T-helper cells) are a type of white blood cell that fights infection and their count [and] indicates the stage of HIV or AIDS in a patient.

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Editorials

   "What if 9-year-old Rachel Beckwith survived the car wreck to see what her generous and inspiring birthday wish produced: more than $1 million in donations to bring clean water to African villages."