Reuters: Climate change threatens African farmland -study
Farming on up to 1 million square kilometers (247 million acres) of land in Africa could subside by 2050 as climate change makes areas too hot and dry for growing crops, a recent study said. This means that climate change could cost the African continent more farmland than the United States uses to plant its eight major field crops combined.

Telegraph: Funding plea to help poor tackle climate change
A committee of British Members of Parliament have urged the government to provide extra funding to help poor countries tackle climate change, which threatens to destroy attempts to reduce poverty, a committee of MPs has urged. A report by the MPs said that in Africa, changes to rainfall were already affecting food production, while rising temperatures are increasing exposure to malaria. Existing aid and national budgets are not enough to meet the challenge, they warned.

The Swazi Observer: AFRICAN AIDS BATTLE AFTER 30 YEARS
The Swazi Observer suggests that AIDS can be defeated only if entire societies decide to tackle the problem, not just individuals: “On an individual basis, AIDS is easily conquered. On a society-wide scale, the goal still remains how to convince individuals to save themselves.”

New York Times: 6,000 Kids Saved This Year in Rwanda (Kristof blog)
Josh Ruxin reports on a new national immunization program against pneumococcal disease currently ongoing in Rwanda. The program will administer a pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV), to nearly all Rwandan children less than a year old by the end of 2009 and all Rwandan infants on a routine basis thereafter, free of charge. This move will start saving approximately 6,000 kids’ lives per year in Rwanda. This is not just good news, he says. “It must count as a major development in global public health.”

-Chandler Smith