The maximum penalty for carrying a knife is a fine of £5,000 in UK.

British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said, the government may introduce metal detectors in schools to cut knife crime.
The airport-style security could be introduced at some of England’s toughest schools following a spate of knife attacks against young people, including a 13-year-old girl stabbed outside a south London school recently.
“We can build on some of the initiatives we’ve already seen--the British Transport Police using search arches, for example, on transport in London,“ Smith said, BBC reported.
“It’s a good idea if we look at the ways in which in some schools it might be appropriate to use search arches, because I want young people to know that it doesn’t make them safer to carry a knife: it actually makes them more likely to be a victim.“
Smith was speaking after the Observer newspaper reported that the measure would be included in a government plan to be announced in February to deal with violent behavior.
Ministers are particularly keen to encourage the use of metal detectors in the worst affected cities--London, Liverpool, Manchester and Birmingham--it said.
According to the Sunday Telegraph newspaper, the number of under-18s convicted or cautioned for crimes rose 37 percent from 2003 to 2006, adding to public anger and rising calls for action on knife and other crime among young people.
John Dunford, general secretary of the Secondary Heads Association, told the newspaper: “There are schools serving areas where knife crime is high in the community and it’s right that these schools take measures to protect pupils.“
The maximum penalty for carrying a knife is a fine of £5,000 and/or six months in prison, rising to two years if the case goes to court.

Ethiopia has reduced its child mortality rate by 40 percent over the last 15 years, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said.
“Under-five mortality rates have reduced by an impressive 40 percent between 1990 and 2006,“ it said in a statement a day after it issued its annual report on the state of the world’s young people, reported AFP.
In 2006, 123 infants died per thousand born. UNICEF highlighted a national immunization program against measles and the distribution of 20 million insecticide-treated bed nets in malaria-prone areas since 2005--enough to protect 10 million families.
In its State of the World’s Children Report for 2008, released in Geneva, UNICEF said developing countries must play an active role alongside global partnerships to further cut child mortality and raise overall care.
Also according to Yobserver.com, Dr. Abdul-Karim Ras’e, minister of health and population, stated that Yemen achieved a great decrease in the death rate among children.
During the inauguration of the UNICEF annual report on the situation of the world’s children in 2008, Ras’e said that Yemen did not witness any deaths from measles in 2007. He added that the death rate due to the 6 most common fatal diseases had decreased from 40,000 cases in 2005 to 14,000 in 2007.
Ras’e called in his speech for a national partnership aimed at lowering the child mortality rate in the country, announcing that his ministry will announce on March 13, 2008, the inauguration of a national campaign for the eradication of bilharzia.
Dr. Nafisa Al-Ja’ifi, general secretary of the Supreme Council for Motherhood and Childhood, revealed the community response to their campaigns, assuring that this had contributed to the decrease in polio rate among Yemeni children. She confirmed the necessity for the continuation of media efforts in cultural awareness campaigns, which had a great impact on the community.

Beijing’s wedding registry said it will stay open for business on the Summer Olympic Games’ opening day, an auspicious date expected to attract thousands of couples hoping for a little extra luck, state media reported.
Guo Xusheng, a spokesman for the city’s Civil Affairs Bureau, denied rumors that the registry would close for the start of the games on Aug. 8, Xinhua News Agency said.
The number eight is considered especially lucky in China because it rhymes with the Mandarin word meaning to get rich.
Beijing set the opening date for the Olympics to fall on the eighth of August, the eighth month of the year, with the games to start at 8:08 p.m.
The date was chosen after the International Olympic Committee had turned down a request to hold the games in September after the peak of the city’s torrid summer weather.
“Couples are free to tie the knot on any weekday, so why not on Aug. 8,“ Guo was quoted as saying.
Xinhua said 3,390 couples got married on the date last year, with some lining up outside the registry overnight.
Guo said the registry was anticipating even bigger numbers this August 8 and advised couples wishing to marry on the date to reserve a place online.
Xinhua said hotels and restaurants were also hoping to cash in on the date, with some offering wedding banquets priced at 2,008 yuan (US$277).

The top UN children’s fund official for west and central Africa, Esther Guluma, has been touring Liberia this week to urge its adults to abandon practices that raise the child mortality rate.
“Malnutrition is the underlined cause for child deaths,“ Guluma said in the central town of Gbarnga. “Liberian parents have to abandon traditions that are not necessarily good for the survival of children.“
UNICEF said in a report that the child mortality rate is 235 deaths in every 1,000 live births, reported AFP.
President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf expressed concern that this is the fifth highest death toll among small children in the world.
In Gbarnga, Guluma launched her appeal after the medical director of the Phebe Hospital, the biggest health complex in the region, outlined some of the beliefs and customs that harm young children.
“We have a problem with the practice of our traditions,“ Dr. Garfee Williams said. “For instance a mother will refuse to give egg to her child because according to our tradition the egg can make a child steal.“
The UNICEF regional chief said: “We have community volunteers that we are using to talk to the parents so that they can be educated on the negative impact their cultural practice has on the survival of children.“
UNICEF’s 2008 report said that the child mortality rate in Liberia has not dropped since the 1990s, despite vaccination campaigns for pregnant women and their offspring and an end in 2003 to successive and brutal civil wars that began in 1989.
The country is still in difficulties, with a shortage of health care staff, while infrastructure destroyed in the conflicts has yet to be repaired.

Toys that are firmly attached to a food product and which require the food to be eaten before the toy can be accessed, would be banned.

The European Commission called for carcinogenic and toxic chemicals to be banned from children’s toys and for wider use of safety warnings to avoid accidents.
Commission vice president, Guenter Verheugen, responsible for enterprise and industrial policy, admitted that the new measures would entail extra costs and that 100 percent safety in toys, or any other product, could not be guaranteed, AFP reported.
“Economic operators are now called to live up to their responsibilities to ensure that children can enjoy playing with toys without risks,“ said Verheugen, as he proposed new EU laws to be considered by the 27 member states.
The rules if adopted would affect EU manufacturers and elsewhere, notably China.
China is the world’s top toy exporter, selling 22 billion toys overseas in 2006.
The EU commissioner explained that there was a need for a re-vamp of the existing laws not least because “we’ve seen dramatic changes in the toy market and we’ve made new scientific breakthroughs in the past 20 years particularly concerning the use of chemicals in toys“.
Among the detailed proposals he unveiled was the banning of all chemical substances that could provoke cancer as well as those which could cause genetic mutations or be “toxic for reproduction“ in toys aimed at the under-14s.
The EU’s executive arm also wants to ban fragrances that could provoke allergies.
Toys that are “firmly attached“ to a food product and which require the food to be eaten before the toy can be accessed, would also be banned.

Children playing in the snow in IranÕs Ardebil province.

Jamaica will join the global community in marking World Social Forum Global Day of Action by supporting a universal call for action on the part of governments to renew commitment to the right to education for all.
The call for action insists that it is people’s dignity, initiative and actions that hold the key to the future, saying that another world free from starvation, discrimination and environmental degradation is possible, but “absolutely unattainable without the exercise by each and all citizens of their right to learn and increase their capacity for action throughout their lifetimes“, reported Jamaicaobserver.com.
The Jamaican Council for Adult Education (JaCAE) is distributing the call for action to local and national authorities and policy makers on behalf of its parent body, the International Council for Adult Education (ICAE), says JaCAE president, Kay Anderson, who is also a vice-president of ICAE.

It’s a staggering statistic: 700 million children--almost half of the world’s youth--breathe air polluted by tobacco smoke. People who smoke in confined spaces like the home or the car subject others to a dangerous mix of toxins including nicotine, carbon monoxide, and cyanide, even when the windows are open. Second-hand smoke exposes children to chronic health risks.
These health threats underscore the need for parents to protect the children from secondhand smoke, reported Biz.yahoo.com.
In the first global initiative of its kind, the International Union Against Cancer (UICC) and members around the world will lead an initiative to promote smoke-free environments for children. “I love my smoke-free childhood“ will be launched on World Cancer Day, February 4.
UICC is publishing a 40-page expert report, “Protecting our children against secondhand smoke“.
“I love my smoke-free childhood“ is the first focus within the World Cancer Campaign, a five-year cancer-prevention effort launched on World Cancer Day 2007. The campaign offers parents simple steps to share with children to prevent cancer later in life.
“Forty percent of cancers are preventable through healthy habits. The first step toward prevention is education, starting with parents and children. Every success story means fewer lives lost,“ says Isabel Mortara, UICC executive director.

Across
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