“World powers have reached an accord, after weeks of tough talks, on a document to be adopted at a Millennium Development summit this month for which [U.N.] Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is seeking billions of dollars of new funding,” Agence France-Presse reports.

Reuters AlertNet examines reactions by development experts and advocates to the U.N. Summit on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which wrapped up Wednesday, after world leaders adopted a declaration that “promised intensified efforts by the 192 U.N. member states to achieve the eight goals by 2015.”

Last month’s 18th International AIDS Conference-AIDS 2010 in Vienna, Austria will be remembered as the first since the global economic downturn, the growing recognition of treatment as part of prevention and acknowledgement of the importance of human rights in the global fight against HIV/AIDS, HIV/AIDS experts said Thursday during a panel discussion in Washington, D.C. A webcast of the event is available now online.

During her opening address to the World Health Assembly (WHA) in Geneva, Switzerland, on Monday, WHO Director-General Margaret Chan called for increased global efforts to reach the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), Pana/Afrique en ligne reports. Chan also set-up several global health challenges to be addressed during the five-day meeting, according to the news service.

Following five days of deliberations aimed at “fleshing-out the so-called Framework Convention for Tobacco Control (FCTC),” delegates on Saturday “approved a proposal to limit the use of tobacco additives, which critics say improve the flavor of cigarettes, encouraging consumers to smoke more,” Reuters reports (Fleitas, 11/20).

The U.S. is committed to working “closely together to help meet the challenges facing Cambodia and all of Southeast Asia,” Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton pledged Monday during a stop in Cambodia as part of her Asia-Pacific tour, that United Press International reports (11/1).

New This Week In The Kaiser Global Health Policy Tracker: The President’s Malaria Initiative announced a new focus country and USAID released a new fact sheet on the agency’s reform initiative. Kaiser’s Policy Tracker provides a timely single reference point for the latest information on congressional and administration action on global health. Strengthening…

Polio Outbreak In Congo Leads To Emergency Immunization Effort “Eighty-five deaths and 184 cases of paralysis were reported in the port city of Pointe Noire, the epicenter of the Republic of Congo’s first polio outbreak in a decade, the World Health Organization said in a statement yesterday,” Bloomberg reports. “The…

A report (.pdf) released on Thursday by UNICEF highlights the recent progress made in reducing the practice of female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) despite ongoing social pressures in five African countries, Deutsche Presse-Agentur/M&C reports. (11/18). “Millions of girls worldwide are cut or mutilated each year,” according to a UNICEF press release (.pdf). “The practice, a serious violation of their human rights, can cause severe, lifelong health problems including bleeding, problems urinating, childbirth complications and newborn deaths,” the release adds (11/18).

“The Obama administration is expected on Tuesday to announce a large increase in its pledge to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, and to call for reform of the organization,” the Wall Street Journal reports. “The pledge of $4 billion over the next three fiscal years to the Geneva-based organization comes as governments and donors around the world have slowed increases in spending to combat HIV/AIDS, with weaker economies straining budgets,” the newspaper adds (McKay, 10/5).