CQ Reports On Trade Deal To Support Haiti Congressional Quarterly reports of a “deal on legislation designed to boost the textile and apparel industries in earthquake-ravaged Haiti” that “is set to move quickly through both chambers.” According to the news service, the quake damaged “apparel factories and ports, both of which are vital to the…

Canada To Give Africa $178M Over 5 Years, Minister Says  Canada will give $178 million over five years to support maternal, child health and educational projects in nine African countries, Bev Oda, Canada’s international cooperation minister, said on Thursday, a day after the conclusion of a meeting of G8 development…

“The global mortality rate for adults [ages 15-59] has fallen by about 1 percent a year for the past 40 years, with women making greater gains than men and huge differences opening up between countries and regions over that period, according to a new study” published online Friday in the journal Lancet, the Washington Post reports, noting the study offers “the most detailed nation-by-nation trends in adult mortality” to date.

Agence France-Presse examines a trend among tobacco firms targeting ads toward women in developing countries: “Advertisements telling smokers they are smarter, more energetic and better lovers than their non-smoking counterparts are a familiar sight across Bangladesh – something unimaginable in most other countries,” the news service writes. Health experts worry that such advertisements may be behind a rise in the numbers of Bangladeshi women using tobacco.

“Hundreds of thousands of women in conflict zones around the world have been or are now becoming victims of rape and sexual torture,” reflects Michel Martin, host of NPR’s “Tell Me More,” as she interviewed Margot Wallstrom, U.N. special representative on sexual violence in conflict, in a show examining the U.N.’s “ramped up” campaign to end systemic sexual violence in war.

Chronicle Herald Opinion Examines Connection Between Water, Sanitation And Women, Child Health “If Stephen Harper is serious about maternal health and child health [as suggested by his plans for the upcoming G8 and G20 summits], he needs to recognize that healthy mothers come from healthy communities,” Maude Barlow and Meera…

G8 development ministers “agreed to a set of guiding principles [for Canada’s G8 maternal and child health initiative] that leaves flexibility for countries to ‘build their basket of initiatives,'” Bev Oda, the Canadian minister for international cooperation, said at a closing news conference on Wednesday, the Toronto Star reports.

Lancet Editorial Argues Global Health Community ‘Too Complacent’ On Development Of An Effective, Affordable Malaria Vaccine   “What is still needed [to fight malaria] is the only tool that has ever truly conquered any infectious disease: an effective and affordable vaccine. And here, the global malaria community has been too complacent,” a…

An ActionAid report (.pdf) released on Wednesday recommends that major aid donors increase their support of small-scale farms run by women in developing countries to maximize the chance of meeting the U.N. Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of halving hunger by 2015, Reuters reports.

Malnutrition suffered during a woman’s childhood “can adversely affect the health of her children, Harvard researchers said Tuesday,” following the release of their study in developing countries, which “found that the shortest women were substantially more likely to have children who died at an early age, who were underweight or who failed to thrive, according to a report in the Journal of the American Medical [Association]” (JAMA), the Los Angeles Times’ blog “Shots” reports.