“More than 200 million children worldwide under age 5 do not get basic health care, leading to nearly 10 million deaths annually from treatable ailments like diarrhea and pneumonia, a US-based charity said Wednesday. Nearly all of the deaths occur in the developing world, with poor children facing twice the risk of dying compared to richer children, according to Save the Children's global report. …Eight out of 10 bottom-ranked countries are in sub-Saharan Africa, where four out of five mothers are likely to lose a child in their lifetime, Save the Children said. …Laos, Yemen, Chad, Somalia and Ethiopia were found doing the worst among developing countries, the report said. … An alarming number of countries are failing to provide the most basic health services that would save lives, with 30 percent of children in developing countries not getting basic health intervention such as prenatal care, skilled assistance during birth, immunizations and treatment for diarrhea and pneumonia. …” [The Associated Press/Factiva] Reuters adds that “The Philippines and Peru are doing the best job of vaccinating children and treating them for critical diseases compared to other developing nations, Save the Children reported on Tuesday. … The rankings were based on data that included immunization against childhood diseases such as malaria and tetanus, access to treatment for leading childhood killers such as diarrhea and pneumonia, prenatal care and other factors. … In the Philippines, 31 percent of children under 5 are missing out on such basic health care, the smallest proportion of any country in the report. Peru was next at 32 percent, then South Africa (34 percent) and Indonesia (35 percent). …” [Reuters/Factiva] Also in this Edition; Briefly Noted… The cyclone and storm surge that tore through Myanmar's Irrawaddy delta killed at least 15,000 people and left 30,000 missing, officials said on Tuesday, warning the toll could rise in low-lying, remote villages. [Reuters/Factiva] The area worst affected by the cyclone that struck Myanmar on Saturday is a vast and populous delta crisscrossed by canals and inlets, qualities that are likely to make the damage extensive and delivering aid extraordinarily difficult. [The New York Times] World Bank President Robert Zoellick begins a three-day trip to Mexico and Colombia as part of his first visit to Latin America since he took the reins of the multilateral agency last July. Zoellick will begin his official trip in Mexico with a visit to the state of Morelos, south of the capital, where he will meet with beneficiaries of the Oportunidades program, which conditions the delivery of aid based upon certain criteria such as child school attendance in beneficiary families. [Agencia EFE/Factiva] Africarisks losing gains from its two-decade-long struggle to trim poverty and expand economic reforms unless governments look for long-term solutions to food-price shock, African Development Bank President, Donald Kaberuka, told Reuters in a telephone interview on Monday. [Reuters/Factiva] Tanzaniawill host in early June a summit meeting with African political and business leaders to promote ties organizers hope could help lift the world's poorest continent. Former US ambassador to the UN and mayor of Atlanta Andrew Young who is co-chairman of the summit, said it will focus on topics ranging from climate change and energy needs to jobs for young people, improving health care and coping with rising food prices. [The Associated Press/Factiva] Zimbabwe's Central Bank has introduced a new high-denomination bank note of a quarter of a billion dollars, state television said Monday. [Agence France Presse/Factiva] Investors have started to pour money in Peru's real estate market, lured by a shortage of buildings and a red-hot economy. Unlike some markets elsewhere, Peru's residential, commercial and industrial real estate prices are climbing. [Dow Jones/Factiva] The Philippines is preparing an ambitious plan to guarantee the supply of cheap, subsidized rice to Manila slum dwellers as the government seeks to restore calm among extremely poor households that are cutting back on food amid soaring prices for rice and other items. [The Financial Times (UK)] China will pledge to actively join a post-Kyoto Protocol deal on tackling global warming, in a planned joint statement with Japan during President Hu Jintao's visit starting Tuesday, officials said. [Agence France Presse/Factiva] Grameen, the pioneering micro lending institution, has seen a sharp rise in problems for millions of poor borrowers across the developing world in repaying loans as food prices soar, according to Muhammad Yunus, its founder and Nobel Peace Prize winner. [The Financial Times (UK)] India is considering a blanket ban on trading in food futures, highlighting growing concerns in Asia over the role of hedge funds and financial market traders in the recent surge in commodities prices. [The Financial Times (UK)] Pakistan needs around $100 billion for meeting infrastructure-related challenges, said Ijaz Ahmed Khan, CEO of Infrastructure Project Development Facility (IPDF), an agency working under Finance Ministry to look for public-private partnership in infrastructure development. [Business Recorder (Pakistan)/Factiva] Food price inflation may be one of the most serious problems facing the world, but one that monetary policy has little power to tackle, central bankers said on Monday. With the price of food rising by more than 40 percent a year, the issue is high on the agenda at meetings of the Bank for International Settlements in Basel which began on Sunday. [Reuters/Factiva] Biotechnology companies, who argue they could help solve the global food crisis, are hoping for a boost tomorrow as regulators attempt to overcome the deadlock over growing genetically modified food in the EU. [The Financial Times (UK)] The US and EU should reconsider a shift to biofuels that has helped increase food prices worldwide by turning agricultural land over to energy crops, UN special advisor Jeffrey Sachs said Monday. Targets to produce more fuels that release less carbon dioxide when burned do not make sense now in a global food scarcity condition, he told reporters before he spoke to EU lawmakers at the European Parliament. [The Associated Press/Factiva] Global warming could pose a greater risk to tropical insects and other species sensitive to the slightest shifts in temperature than to creatures living in the world's tundra, US scientists warned Monday. While cold weather animals are used to huge temperature changes, tropical species live under a much smaller temperature range and face a bigger risk of extinction with an increase of just two or four degrees Celsius, according to a team led by University of Washington scientists. [Agence France Presse/Factiva | 
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