⑩Slow response to East Africa famine 'cost 'lives'

 Thousands of needless deaths occurred from famine in East Africa last year.  The US government says 29,000 children under five years old died between May and July 2011. That is because the international community failed to heed early warnings.

At one stage during the East African famine the UN estimated that 10 million people were in need of humanitarian assistance. Hundreds of thousands of refugees went to camps in search of food, especially those from parts of Somalia where government forces have been fighting Islamist al-Shabab militants. The report calls on all parties to take crisis warnings more seriously. "All members of the international system must improve their ability to prevent the worst effects of hunger crises before they happen," it says.

 Oxfam and Save the Children say it took more than six months for aid agencies to act on warnings of imminent famine. The agencies say various organizations like governments, donors, the United Nations and NGOs need to learn from the mistakes.

Save the Children's Chief Executive, Justin Forsyth, said clear warnings had been ignored. He said, "We can no longer allow this grotesque situation to continue; where the world knows an emergency is coming but ignores it until confronted with TV pictures of desperately malnourished children."

I also think that an immediate action is required to a food shortage problem.
This problem is not the problem of only African countries but a problem of the entire world. Probably people of advanced nations need to have higher consciousness to the problem of the food shortage of an impoverished nation, and need to consider well "what he can do."

By Martin Plaut

BBC News

Published: 18 January 2012 Last updated at 02:12 GMT

⑨Pinochet judge Baltasar Garzon goes on trial in Spain

 Baltasar Garzon is a Spanish judge who famously indicted late Chilean leader Augusto Pinochet. He went on trial at the supreme court in Madrid charged with the illegally approval of police to bug the conversations of lawyers with clients. The judge was accused of overstepping his authority by ordering the recording of prison conversations between three defendants and their lawyers. He denied wrongdoing and said he had always sought to protect detainees' right to a fair defence.

 Further, in a second case opening on 24 January, he is charged with exceeding his powers by ordering an investigation into the disappearance of tens of thousands of people during the 1936-39 Spanish Civil War and under Franco's dictatorship.

 Gaspar Llamazares, an MP for the United Left party, told AFP news agency that Mr Garzon was being persecuted for this work to expose the crimes of the Franco era. 68-year-old Angel Fernandez who is another protester said: "I don't know the law, but I can see there is an injustice. I can see there is absolute decomposition and that they are not judging those who should be judged."

 It is a person that judges a crime and it is very difficult to judge without inserting personal feelings. A judge is important position and rank which determine people's lifetime, therefore I should face in an always fair and calm feeling.

By Tom Burridge

BBC News

Published: 17 January 2012 Last updated at 18:00 GMT

⑧Malawian doctors - are there more in Manchester

The Medical Council of Malawi has 618 doctors on its register. But a good number of these will have arrived in the country from overseas, and others may have left the country. Recent estimates from the UK's Department for International Development put the real number of doctors in Malawi at 265.  This number is low, in a country of 15 million.

The myth probably originated in the 1970s and 1980s, says Malawian doctor and social historian John Lwanda, who himself came to study medicine in the UK in the 70s. That was the decade an agreement was reached, whereby the Malawian government would send a few medical students to the University of Manchester each year. By the end of the 70s, the Malawian government was becoming anxious because many of the students were not returning from the UK after qualification. "In 1981 the ministry of health in Malawi made a last-ditch attempt to get their students and doctors to come back home. And we had a big meeting in Manchester - students, qualified doctors were invited to come and attend," says Dr Lwanda. There was a "severe shortage of doctors".

But, fortunately the College of Medicine in Malawi is doing a fantastic job and producing many more doctors than before, so it is said that hopefully the situation will improve in the future.

The doctor is needed in the impoverished nation. The device which dispatches a doctor to those countries will be called for in the future.

By Charlotte McDonald

BBC News

Published: 15 January 2012 Last updated at 00:04 GMT

⑦The emotional rollercoaster of living abroad

In the cases of many, moving to another country for work can be a bemusing experience. But, among the hundreds of thousands of professional people who are living far from their home country, to experience something very different from home is occasionally part of the attraction for them.

 For example, a French-born scientist called Veronique Briquet-Laugier moved to the French embassy in Delhi, trying to boost co-operation between French and Indian scientists. She said, "I wanted to get away from Old Europe. It is going to sleep. India is a dynamic economy and an exciting one." Start, her first impressions were well above her expectations. The airport and shopping malls in India were far better than she was expecting. But then she found it chaotic. She thought: 'What is this - I want to kill someone!"

She is still in Delhi, where she is no longer so likely to feel homicidally annoyed. She says she is enjoying the buzz and the "feeling of being part of something" more and more: "Indians are quite similar to French, they talk all the time. They are into politics and are interested in everything - I can see the Mediterranean in them! "And practically, it is much better here. We have a maid and a driver and we can order whatever we want to eat."

I thought that there are various difficulties by living abroad. But, people learn by carrying out strange experience. When the heart which challenges what was important, I felt actually.

By Rebecca Marston

Business reporter, BBC News

Published: 10 January 2012 Last updated at 00:04 GMT