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Punjab Chief Minister Mian Shahbaz Sharif has said that poverty in Pakistan persists despite foreign assistance worth billions of dollars by foreign countries because nation could not exploit its true potential and remained under-developed.

He was speaking at the Independence Day function held under the aegis of Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry here on Friday.  LCCI President Mian Muzaffar Ali, Senior Vice President Tahir Javaid Malik and Vice President lrfan Iqbal Sheikh also spoke on the occasion. Senior Political Assistant to the Chief Minister Pervaiz Malik, foreign diplomats and business elites including industrialists and traders of city also attended the function.

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The program for poverty reduction at the Union Council level was reviewed at an important meeting held under the chairmanship of Sindh Chief Minister, Syed Qaim Ali Shah. The Chief Minister said that under the plan, financial assistance and loan facilities will be provided along with basic facilities while employment opportunities will be created for people living in backward areas.

Under the pilot project, he directed, the target fixed for two districts be achieved while four more districts of Jacobabad, Thatta, Badin and Khairpur be included in the project.  In a briefing on the occasion, Abdul Aziz Uqaili informed that overall 257,000 people have been benefitted in 50 UCs of district Shikarpur and 37 UCs of district Kashmore and Kandhkot.

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John Hough sacrifices time with his family to work 12 hour days, seven days a week as a cab driver in Philadelphia. After paying for his cab, radio and taxi medallion, he earns slightly more than $4 an hour. Luis Larin was willing to do anything , cleaning, trash collection, demolition work , to earn enough money to support himself and send money home to his mother and sister in Guatemala.

After paying for his transportation to and from work sites, the former day laborer said through an interpreter that he was lucky to earn $20 a day, just enough for him to afford a one-meal-a-day diet of Ramen noodles. Renee Wolf Koubiadis said it took her years to overcome the feelings of shame and isolation she felt growing up in New Jersey, the daughter of a single mom on welfare.

As unemployment and poverty rates rise, health care becomes less accessible and more Americans become homeless and hungry, Hough, Larin, Koubiadis and about 150 others from across the globe are in West Virginia this week to discuss ways to re-ignite the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s war on poverty.

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Child poverty in Minnesota rose 33 percent between 2000 and 2007, six times the national average, and several other measures of child well-being declined, according to a widely-watched annual report on the nation's children. Overall, Minnesota still ranks No. 2 nationally in the annual "Kids Count'' study, with strong showings in health and educational status.

But several indicators seem to show the effect of a sharp downturn in Minnesota's economy and state budget cuts in the past several years. "It's not surprising, but it's bothersome," said Nan Madden, an analyst at the Minnesota Council of Nonprofits who directs its Minnesota Budget Project. "We've become a more fragile state economically, and when that happens, poverty rises." The Kids Count report is produced annually by the Annie E. Casey Foundation of Baltimore.

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He said this would include the death of the sect's leader, Mohammed Yusuf.  Yusuf was arrested but then shot dead. Police say he was killed in a shoot-out when he tried to escape but rights groups say it was a summary execution.

His Boko Haram sect attacked several police stations across the mainly Muslim north.  The sect said it was fighting against Western education and believed Nigeria's government was being corrupted by Western ideas and wanted to see Islamic law imposed across the country.  Armed with machetes

Meanwhile a video has emerged on the Youtube website showing Yusuf under police interrogation after his capture.  Someone off-camera is heard to say: "You have caused the deaths of many innocent people."  Speaking in the local Hausa language, he replies: "Those who have been killed, have been killed."

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As government figures confirm that the global economic downturn is having major effects on Tajikistan, experts warn that more and more households in Central Asia's poorest country will be driven into poverty.  Aside from collapsing production and exports, the decline in money sent home by migrants working abroad will deprive families of a key income source.

Tajikistan's statistical agency reports that the economy grew by 2.8% year on year in the first six months of 2009, half the rate seen in the same period of 2008. Industrial production fell by 13%, and export revenues were 48% down, a reflection of low world prices and lack of demand for aluminum and cotton, Tajikistan's key export commodities.

As of June, one-third of all industrial plants and factories across the country were at a standstill, said Nuriddin Kayumov, director of Tajikistan's Institute of Economic Studies.  "Many directors are complaining that they can't sell their products and they are being forced to send their workers on unpaid leave," he said.

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The sectarian violence which broke out in several parts of northern Nigeria at the end of July has more to do with popular anger and frustration with prevailing economic conditions than religion, say religious experts and Muslim groups. Concerns have also been raised about the reaction of security forces.

The violence began in northeastern Bauchi State on Jul 26, when members of a Muslim sect known as Boko Haram (meaning "Western education is forbidden" in Hausa) were arrested on suspicion of planning to attack a police station. In the days that followed, police stations and other government establishments were attacked across four other northern states, Borno, Yobe, Kano and Katsina.

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While the international community condemns the prison trial of Aung San Suu Kyi, many people in military-ruled Myanmar have more pressing concerns as they struggle to make ends meet. "I saw some barricades near the jail when I passed by on the bus but I have no interest in the verdict," father-of-two Maung Zaw told AFP.

The 40-year-old said he earns a meagre 1.50 dollars a day through his two jobs in construction and as a shop worker. "I am only interested in my daily wages for my family which is a more important thing for me," he said.

Speculation is rife among diplomats and foreign observers as to the sentence the Nobel laureate could face if she is convicted of breaching her house arrest rules, after an American man swam to her lakeside home in May.

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One in seven Italians scrapes by on less than 1,000 euros (£853) a month and roughly one in 20 lives in absolute poverty, unable to maintain a minimum standard of living, the national statistics agency said Thursday.

The proportion of Italians living in relative poverty -- defined as monthly spending of 999.67 euros or less -- rose last year to 13.6 percent of the population or 8.78 million people, the ISTAT agency said. That was up from 12.8 percent in 2007, with the country's economically depressed south bearing the brunt. Families with more than three children, young bread winners or elderly relatives were among the groups worst affected.

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Amy Reese has witnessed firsthand the problem of children living in poverty. And lately, from what she sees at her facility, she says things have been getting worse. "It's increased definitely in the past six months," said Ms. Reese, the assistant director for women's and children's services at the Garden City Rescue Mission in Augusta. That uptick appears to be economy-based, she said.

"According to the phone calls we get, they say they just got evicted because they're unable to pay their rent," she said. The continuing issue of children living in poverty in Georgia and South Carolina was highlighted in a Kids Count Data Book released Tuesday, with Georgia ranked 37th in the nation in that category and South Carolina 40th.

Among the local statistics, Richmond County had one of the highest rates of increase in child poverty , going from 15,509 children in 2006 to 17,683 in 2007. That's a nearly 5 percent increase.
Other counties say they're also seeing the trend.

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