UNITED NATIONS Cheap Nike Air Max Dynasty Australia , Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Saturday welcomed a high-level dialogue between two sides of the Korean Peninsula, and encouraged "both sides to use the resumed discussions to pave the way for deescalating the situation" in the region.


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DPRK to resume high-level contact Sunday afternoon


Spotlight: DPRK army in state of war, UN chief urges for restraint on Korean Peninsula


BEIJINGPYONGYANG, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) said late Friday that its frontline troops had moved into a "fully armed, wartime state" ahead of an 48-hour deadline, while UN and China urged the parties to refrain from taking any further measures.


The deadline will end at 5 p.m. local time (0830 GMT) Saturday for the South to stop propaganda broadcasts with loudspeakers, the official KCNA news agency reported.Full Story


DPRK accuses South Korea of bringing two nations to "brink of war," threatening military action


UNITED NATIONS, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) on Friday claimed South Korea's provocative action along the De-Militarized Zone (DMZ) has brought the two nations to "the brink of war," threatening "strong military action" if Seoul doesn't halt its loudspeaker propaganda campaign.


The DPRK also sought an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council on the crisis, but there was no immediate response.


by Stephanie Parker


UNITED NATIONS, May 27 (Xinhua) -- As the global community strives to reach the eight anti-poverty objectives outlined by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a high-ranking UN official has called attention to the fact that 6.9 million children under the age of five die every year.


"(In the) 1990s child mortality was at 12 million a year and now in the 2000s we have 6.9 million," Kim Dickson, a public health physician and senior advisor with the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), told Xinhua in a recent interview.


According to the latest statistics released by UNICEF on child mortality, the global mortality figure translates into 19,000 deaths per day.


The adoption of the MDGs has played an important role in creating a better world in terms of maternal and child health, Dickson said. "But we still have a long way to go."


The MDGs, including the eradication of extreme poverty, improvement of maternal health and the reduction of child mortality, were agreed upon by world leaders at the Millennium Summit held at UN Headquarters in New York in September 2000 with 2015 as its deadline.


CHILD MORTALITY


Dickson recalled some of the experiences she had as a former practising physician in Ghana. "Some of the things were so horrific that even as a doctor I would run away, because a child was dying before me."


"I could not tell a mother that her child was dying because she would be crying and I would be (also) crying, so I would have to leave it to the nurse," she said.


"So I can tell you many stories" about children under five dying from malnutrition, malaria, measles, diarrhea and other preventable illnesses, Dickson added.


Despite the dire consequences of these illnesses turning deadly, the UN official said that "we now know from statistics that the day you are born, your birthday, is the riskiest day for you in your whole life."


Therefore, "newborn death" is a priority as statistics provided by UNICEF state that over 3 million babies across the world die during their first month outside the mother's womb.


"So now we have children dying in the first 28 days of life," Dickson said. "We have reduced child deaths, but we have not done that much for newborns."


Generally speaking, a newborn death can be prevented by practising basic newborn care. In the interview, Dickson cited specific examples of newborn care, including "wrapping the baby to keep it warm, drying the baby off and giving it breast milk during the first one hour and continuing exclusive breastfeeding."


Therefore, she said that the international community should focus on early childbirth advocacy.


GROUND ACTION


"You can make the biggest impact if you focus around the time of labor and early child birth," Dickson said. "We are asking countries to focus."


More specifically, UNICEF is putting a larger emphasis on educational timing and asking the right questions. "(We are encouraging people) to ask important questions like, 'what can you do? What are the interventions that you can apply around this time in terms of monitoring the labor?" Dickson said.


Through these questions,"(UNICEF is) really saying that we need to reach more women and newborns" because "if you reach more of these women and newborns with quality care you can prevent 70 percent of these (situations)," the high-ranking official said.


Currently, UNICEF is diligently working to decrease child mortality rates and advocate childbirth education, she added.


The Wi-Fi coverage available on Beijing-Shanghai bullet trains will be expanded to all of China's high-speed trains in the future, said China Railways Corporation's deputy general manager Huang Min.


Huang made the remarks o