Inter Press Service looks at the U.N. Human Rights Council’s (HRC) endorsement of “water and sanitation as a basic human right” last week, and the “reality” that “water and sanitation have remained two of the most neglected sub-texts of the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which came under scrutiny at the MDG summit” in September.

Matrix Laboratories Recieves Tentative FDA Approval To Provide Generic ARV Under PEPFAR Pharmaceutical company Mylan announced on Tuesday that its “subsidiary Matrix Laboratories Ltd. has received tentative government approval for atazanavir sulfate capsules, an AIDS treatment that will be available in some developing countries,” Pittsburgh Business Times reports. “Atazanavir sulfate capsules…

The U.N. marked World Habitat Day Monday with a call for governments worldwide to do more to reduce urban poverty and improve the living conditions populations in cities around the world face, Kenya Broadcasting Corporation reports. “Creating better cities demands the combined efforts of national and local governments, civil society and the private sector, supported by the best efforts of the United Nations system,” U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a statement released to mark World Habitat Day.

Chan Defends WHO’s Response To H1N1 On Tuesday, WHO Director-General Margaret Chan defended her agency’s response to the H1N1 flu pandemic saying, “I personally do not believe that WHO exaggerated the threat,” and that “[a] new disease is, by definition, poorly understood as it emerges,” Reuters reports. Chan continued, “Had…

The three-day U.N. Summit on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) ended Wednesday with world leaders “adopting a declaration agreed [to] earlier this month, which promised intensified efforts by the 192 U.N. member states to achieve the world body’s so-called Millennium Development Goals by 2015,” Reuters reports (Worsnip/Wroughton, 9/22).

Several blogs, publications examine the U.N. Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) summit: The MDGs serve a dual purpose “helping the poor countries to fight poverty and the rich countries to preserve a sense of social solidarity,” writes Jeffrey Sachs, director of Columbia University’s Earth Institute in a post on the Guardian’s…

The Clinton Global Initiative’s (CGI) three-day annual summit began on Tuesday with a focus on economic growth, natural disaster preparation and the empowerment of women and girls, Reuters reports.

“The U.S. Senate Monday approved a bill intended to help 100 million people around the world gain access to clean water and sanitation,” United Press International reports (9/20).

On the first of the three-day U.N. Summit on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Monday appealed “to the assembled presidents, prime ministers and kings to use their power to meet U.N. goals to help the world’s poorest by 2015,” the Associated Press reports.

“Ten years after world leaders set the most ambitious goals ever to tackle global poverty, they are meeting again to try to spur action to meet the targets by the 2015 deadline – which the U.N. says will be difficult, if not impossible, in some cases,” the Associated Press reports. More than 140 world leaders are scheduled to participate in the three-day U.N. Summit on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which kicks off Monday.