Some 200 million children in less developed nations pay a terrible price for not getting the right foods when aged one and two.

Poor children given a nutritional boost during the first two years of life earned adult wages nearly 50 percent higher than peers deprived of a food supplement, a study has shown.
Previous research has pointed to a link between improved nutrition in early childhood and higher productivity later in life, looking at indicators such as body height and performance in school, AFP reported.
But this is the first direct evidence that eating well as an infant and toddler translates into greater earning potential as an adult, according to the study published in the British medical journal The Lancet.
About 200 million children in less developed nations pay a terrible price for not getting the right food when aged one and two, the period when nutrition is most critical for future health.
Iron and iodine deficiencies, for example, can lead to stunted growth, poor cognitive development and energy-sapping anaemia. Such handicaps prevents children from realizing their full potential.
The study, led by John Hoddinott of the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington DC, analyzed data on 1,424 Guatemalans aged 25 to 42 who grew up in four villages in the same region.
The children in two of the villages, enrolled during the 1970s in a nutritional supplement program, were given a daily serving of a nutritious central American hot beverage called atole, made from corn meal, water, brown sugar, vanilla and either chocolate or fruit.
The children from the other two villages, living in virtually identical conditions, were given a less nutritious food supplement.
When Hoddinott and his team compared the two groups two and three decades later, they were startled by what they found.
The adults who had eaten the atole as tiny tots pulled in hourly wages 46 percent higher than those who had been given the low-calorie alternative.
Many of the men had jobs requiring strength and stamina, the study noted.
But surprisingly there was no similar divide in school performance or cognitive test scores, and it only applied to men.
Indeed, for the atole-nourished women the results were reversed compared to their male counterparts: the females showed improved reading skills, but very little economic gain.
The difference was explained by fewer economic opportunities for women, many of whom became homemakers, the researchers said.

The UK government has been accused of putting children at risk through proposals to deport failed child asylum seekers.
Currently children that are turned down for asylum in the UK are still allowed to remain until they are 18, said Politics.co.uk
But the government recently set out proposals to begin deportation procedures immediately.
Immigration Minister Liam Byrne argued the present grace period is a “green light“ to people-traffickers who bring children into the UK knowing they cannot be sent home.
However, children’s campaigners warned the threat of immediate deportation would do little to protect children.
The NSPCC argued young people turned down for asylum could go “underground“ where they would be more vulnerable to exploitation.
Moreover, the charity is concerned lone children may be unable to make their case for asylum, making it more likely they are rejected.
NSPCC director and chief executive, Mary Marsh said: “The UK government appears to be turning its back on children who have been separated from their families and their communities, and who may have suffered trauma or persecution.
“The majority of these children will be alone, frightened and unable to speak English and therefore powerless to explain why their safety depends upon remaining in the UK.“
The government insists children will not be deported unless the authorities are “100 percent sure“ of their safety.
The NSPCC counters safety cannot always be guaranteed and is concerned children will be returned to a dangerous environment.
The charity is calling on the government to guarantee all lone children an independent guardian that can give them the time, support, information, advice and resources necessary to complete the asylum process.
Around 2,000 unaccompanied children claim asylum in the UK every year.

Epoc Messe Frankfurt, organizer of Middle East Toy Fair which will take place from March 31 to April 2 2008 at the Dubai International Convention and Exhibition Center, announced that they will provide participating exhibitors with the opportunity to donate their samples after the show to the French NGO, CIELO which will collect toys and games for the El Masarah Palestinian toy library in the West Bank.
“Children are paying a serious and heavy price due to the continuing conflict in Palestine. As a corporate entity we feel that more needs to be done to ensure that all the region’s children are protected both from the direct and indirect influence of this dispute, and in our own way we are playing a part through this event to help the children,“ said Eckhard Pruy, chief executive officer, EPOC Messe Frankfurt GmbH, according to Albawaba.com.
The activities run by CIELO are based on a network of community-based toy libraries located in public premises around the world (Latin America, Africa and the Middle-East); for the disadvantaged children and their families in urban areas. These entertainments and meeting places focus on the pleasure to play, stimulate curiosity, creativity and imagination, and strengthen interactions and family integration, while reinforcing the user’s knowledge. The toy libraries are always managed by men and women living into the neighborhood duly trained at grass-root levels as toy librarians.
In order to build personalities that will be able to take an active part in improving their living conditions, these toy libraries also encourage positive values such as respect, share, comradeship, solidarity, autonomy, tolerance and responsibility.
In addition, some of these toy libraries implement other human development actions such as street game festivals, mobile game trunks for isolated populations, promotion of traditional games and toys, game services for disabled children, education for sustainable development through gaming activities.
The Middle East Toy Fair is the region’s largest and most influential trade exhibition for toys, baby and infant products, stationery and back-to-school products, games, hobbies, gifts, apparel and licensing.

A boy with a poster of Imam Khomeini in the early days of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Kareem and Mustapha were little more than toddlers when their parents sent them to Cairo’s streets to sell mints and tissues.
They had begun on the path trod by Cairo’s growing thousands of street kids--sleeping on streets, joining gangs for protection, underfed and covered with the filth of a city packed with 18 million people.
Then Ahmed Sayid came along. The social worker found the brothers under a bridge, the kind of dark corner in which he often looks for children to bring to the shelter where he works, reported The Christian Science Monitor.
Sayid, who works for the El-Ma’weh charity, used to search Cairo’s dangerous streets alone, on foot. Now he rides in a van shared with workers from other charities at night looking for street children. It is a small but tangible symbol of efforts by the Egyptian government and non-profit organizations to reach the hordes of street children so long scorned.
New half-day centers, overnight facilities and psychological services are being launched. They reach only a fraction of the tens of thousands of street children but the growth of the services is remarkable in a country where conservative estimates put the poverty rate at 20 percent and street kids have long been regarded by society and the government as little more than delinquents.
Just seven years ago, only a group called Hope Village Society worked with street kids in Cairo, and two groups worked in Egypt’s next biggest city, Alexandria.
Today some dozen groups try to help. While services remain basic, they have grown rapidly in the four years since the government first acknowledged the street kids’ plight and a series of murders of street children shocked the public into facing what had been a taboo subject.
Until 2003, the government and society ignored children like these, fleeing abuse or poverty at home to wind up working for a gang in the streets. Under Egyptian law, street children can be locked up as “potential delinquents“.
But when a new general secretary took over the Council on Childhood and Motherhood, she brought a revolutionary vision toward social problems, says Somaya Al-Alfy, head of the street children section at the council, which is a government-run advocacy group.
With lobbying by the council and UNICEF, Suzanne Mubarak, the wife of Egypt’s leader, agreed in 2003 to put her clout behind an effort to change the law and protect kids. While the effort to amend the law has languished, acknowledgment of the problem opened the door for more charities to start offering services.

Half a million American children take classes online.

Weekday mornings, three of Tracie Weldie’s children eat breakfast, make beds and trudge off to public school--in their case, downstairs to their basement in a suburb of Milwakee, where their mother leads them through math and other lessons outlined by an Internet-based charter school.
Half a million American children take classes online, with a significant group, like the Weldies, getting all their schooling from virtual public schools, reported Biz.yahoo.com.
The rapid growth of these schools has provoked debates in courtrooms and legislatures over money, as the schools compete with local districts for millions in public dollars, and over issues like whether online learning is appropriate for young children.
Two models of online schooling predominate. In Florida, Illinois and half a dozen other states, growth has been driven by a state-led, state-financed virtual school that does not give a diploma but offers courses that supplement regular work at a traditional school.
The other model is a full-time online charter school like the Wisconsin Virtual Academy. About 90,000 children get their education from one of 185 such schools nationwide.
Despite enthusiastic support from parents, the schools have met with opposition from some educators, who say elementary students may be too young for Internet learning, and from teachers, unions and school boards, partly because they divert state payments from the online student’s home
district.

Hundreds of children under the age of 5 die from preventable diseases each day in military-ruled Myanmar, the second-worst mortality rate for children in Asia except for Afghanistan, UN officials said recently.
Dr. Osamu Kunii, the nutrition expert in Myanmar for the UN Children’s Fund, said there were between 100,000 to 150,000 child deaths per year in the country--or between 270 and 400 daily.
The under-5 mortality rate is a critical indicator of the well-being of children, AP said.
About 21 percent of child deaths in Myanmar are caused by acute respiratory infection, followed by pneumonia, diarrhea and septicemia.

Across
1- I................................a letter yesterday.
2- It’s your.....................to clean the room.
3- God is the...............of the universe.

Down
4- I............the little child across the street
5- I never lie. I always tell the...........