The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) says it needs over $9 million in aid for refugees in Chad.

The aid is vital to an estimated 350,000 displaced persons as Chad descends into further violence

An upsurge of violence in Somalia has forced the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) to suspend airlifts of food and aid.

The U.N. has also evacuated all its international staff from Somalia as the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) battles the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC)

Representatives of the nursing community in Scotland say, nurses need better protection from violence and aggression.

The Royal College of Nursing has come forward to urge legislators and employers to deal with the issue. The union says one third of nurses tend to get attacked at some point in their career and some nurses end up leaving the profession

The new chief of the World Health Organization (WHO) Margaret Chan on Thursday vowed to focus her administration in dealing with the health issues of Africans and women.

Chan says, "The people of Africa carry an enormous and disproportionate burden of ill health and premature death. The health of African people must therefore be a key indicator of the performance of WHO

A team of researchers from Liverpool John Moores University Center for Public Health in Britain says children now reach puberty earlier than ever. As a result, they should be offered advice on adult issues much sooner.

The study found that alcohol abuse, unprotected sex and self harm may result from children receiving information on these sensitive issues later than they ought to. This is because the age at which puberty occurs has reduced over the last 150 years