Despite a litany of recession-era cutbacks on elderly people, Ireland has still been ranked as one of the safest and most supportive places in the world to grow old gracefully.

Earlier this week, at the London Summit on Family Planning organised jointly by the British Government’s Department for International Development and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, it was announced that the UK was doubling its efforts on family planning in the developing world to £180m per year, through direct and indirect support.

THE UN and aid agencies are warning that the famine in Somalia will grow in size and severity unless the world community responds with more aid.

President Barack Obama continued his march to reverse contentious Bush administration policies, ending the ban on giving government money to international groups that perform abortions or provide information.

AS thousands of groups in 140 countries gathered to mark World Population Day yesterday, the United Nations has called for more action to promote women’s rights and reduce the millions of deaths resulting from unwanted pregnancies.

“How much morality is there in saving an Ethiopian child from starvation today, for it to survive [for] a life of brutal circumcision, poverty, hunger, violence and sexual abuse, resulting in another half-dozen such wide-eyed children, with comparably jolly little lives ahead of them?” a columnist in a rival newspaper wrote during the week.

DRUG barons worldwide are turning to trafficking women and generating billions in profits, a UN conference in Dublin was told yesterday.

AIDS will leave 40 million children worldwide orphaned by 2010, with male sexual behaviour “largely responsible”, a United Nations report said yesterday.

THE United States has withdrawn its $34 million annual subsidy to United Nations Population Fund.

The Irish Family Planning Association has called on the Government to condemn US President George W Bush’s decision to withhold $35m (€35.2m) from the United Nations Population Fund.

THE Bush administration will not pay $34 million it earmarked for UN family-planning programmes aimed at controlling population overseas.