Article Source: The Daily Camera

Project part of center's Community Building Program

This time of year, the rains finally begin to fall after a long, dry winter in the Sahel region of Africa. The monsoon weather pattern is depended on each summer to quench the cracked earth and nourish the crops.It's also depended on -- for reasons scientists don't totally understand -- to end the area's perpetual outbreaks of bacterial meningitis, a disease that causes an inflammation of the membrane that covers the brain.

Now, scientists from the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder are working to improve monsoon forecasts so that countries in Africa's "meningitis belt" -- which roughly stretches across the continent from Senegal to Ethiopia -- can better prepare to fight the disease with a limited supply of vaccine.

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Article Source: CNN

(CNN) -- Sixteen-year-old Jessica Watson has spent the past seven months in a self-imposed solitary confinement of sorts.

For 210 days, the avid sailor skippered her 34-foot yacht, the Pink Lady, around the world, a feat few others, let alone teenagers, have accomplished. But on Saturday afternoon, her solo trip ended in dramatic fashion as tens of thousands of cheering spectators and hundreds of boats turned out to welcome her home to Australia's Sydney Harbor, according to CNN affiliate Nine News.

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Article Source: InterPress Service

KEMPTON PARK, South Africa, May 12, 2010 (IPS) - Poet activist Myesha Jenkins’ voice reverberated through the hall: "Women are out in the night; we are cleaning the streets, some are walking the streets..." Jenkins’s verse was echoed by fellow poets Zanele Faith Mavuso and Aura Zawanzaruwa who spoke of the pain of violence and the strength of women.

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Article Source: InterPress Service

JOHANNESBURG, May 12, 2010 (IPS) - When Letesia Mbewe was nominated as a beneficiary in a cash transfer pilot project in Zambia’s Chipata district, she had no idea the project would change her life and that of her three children. Mbewe, who spent most of her days tilling the fields struggling to earn enough to pay for one meal a day for her family, can now afford three meals a day. She can also send her children to school.

But Mbewe is not the only one to benefit from cash transfers. According to a 2009 World Bank report titled "Conditional Cash Transfer: Reducing Present and Future Poverty", cash transfers have led to many positive results in poor communities. These include: higher household consumption; increased use of preventive health services; a reduction in child labour; and higher school enrolment.

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