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In some Michigan counties, more than one in three of the most vulnerable residents -- children -- live in poverty, and confirmed cases of their neglect and abuse continue to rise, according to the annual Kids Count report.

Even more alarming is that the situation is likely far worse than the report suggests. That's because the annual look at the well-being of Michigan's youths is limited to data that is at least a year old. Continued budget cuts to social services may show up in data in the coming years, said Jane Zehnder-Merrell, study director and researcher at the Michigan League for Human Services.

Consider the drop in teen birth rates, which Zehnder-Merrill credited to public awareness programs, better health care and even students staying in a classroom or finding jobs and other after-school activities rather than hitting the streets.

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While Kamali Dehuri, a destitute woman of Kamakhyanagar in Dhenkanal district, allegedly sold off her two-month-old son for Rs 500 to Salma Khan, K Jyoti (35) committed suicide and tried to kill her three children, including two daughters, by giving them poison, supposedly because she could no longer battle poverty.

Kamali, according to reports, was finding the going tough ever since her husband died four months ago. A mother of two sons, Kamali was trying to make ends meet by working as a daily-wage labourer. But finding it increasingly difficult, she handed over her baby to Salma on Thursday for a few hundred rupees.

Instances of child sale are usually reported from the KBK region, but Kamala's case has left the administration searching for answers. Dhenkanal collector S N Girish admitted that Kamala was a destitute woman, but brushed aside allegations of child sale. "She was finding it hard to raise two kids, hence had given her baby to another woman to look after him.

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Yes, the origins of the challenge fund model are to be found in the UK; a developed and industrialized country, very unlike Vietnam. But over the last decade the challenge fund model has been adapted and applied in numerous developing countries across the globe.

Here in East Asia, there have been virtually no challenge funds until very recently, and this is the first time that a challenge fund has been designed to operate in just a single country, rather than a wider region. So, to be very honest, I cannot claim that we absolutely “know” it will work in Vietnam.

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 Majority of people believed that poverty in the country was raised since last ten years due to different reasons. According to a Gilani Research Foundation survey carried out by Gallup Pakistan, poverty in Pakistan is believed to have risen over the past 10 years; overwhelming majority (84%) believe poverty has increased whereas only 15% believe it has either decreased or remained the same and 1% gave no response. When asked about the efforts for helping poor people, only 16% believe such efforts have increased while 55% believe otherwise.

The remaining 29% said the act of helping poor people has remained the same or gave no response. A nationally representative sample of men and women from across the country were asked “In your view has the incidence of poverty in the past 10 years increased, decreased or remained the same?” Eighty four percent (84%) claimed it has increased, 6% believe it has decreased whereas 9% claimed incidence of poverty has remained the same over the past ten years.

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Risk of poverty is still higher in former Eastern German states than in western German states after Germany united for 20 years, shown by official figures released on Tuesday. The risk of poverty rate in Germany differs significantly between German states, said German federal statistical office (Destatis) based in Wiesbaden. 19.5 percent of people in the former Eastern German states are at risk of poverty compared with 13.1 percent in the west.

Clear differences were also observed between the northern states and southern states, said Destatis. Nearly every fourth person living in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern wasat risk of poverty in 2008 and more than every fifth in Bremen. In the southern states of Baden-Wuerttemberg and Bayern, the risk of poverty rate is only 10.2 percent and 10.8 percent separately.

The unemployed and families headed by single parents were most at risk of poverty, Destatis said. The risk of poverty rate was calculated according to a standard of European Union. People, who earn less than 60 percent of the average income in Germany, were at risk of poverty.

Every cloud has a silver lining and Pembadi, resident of Tanah Abang, Central Jakarta, looked forward to it one Wednesday afternoon.

Sitting in a registration room for patients claiming medical insurance at Cipto Mangunkusumo hospital, Central Jakarta, he was preparing himself for an interview with an official to assess his eligibility to receive a discount for his wife’s labor bills.

Pembadi, who moves between jobs frequently, is not on the list of recipients for free healthcare insurance for families living in poverty (Gakin), provided by the administration.

His unstable job status mean his family are not categorized as living in poverty. Currently he is unemployed and is finding it hard to gather Rp 3 million (US$315) for the birth of his child.

“I work in construction. The job is contract-based,” he said. Pembadi applied for relief through the SKTM scheme, where a resident can claim medical bills by attaching a letter stating that they are living in poverty from subdistrict chiefs in their residencies.

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The report by economist Suresh Tendulkar used money spent by a person on specific household goods and services to define the poor.  People living in the states of Orissa, Bihar and Chhattisgarh were found to be among the poorest, the report said.

It also found that the number of poor in cities had decreased, while those in villages had gone up. The report has moved from the traditional method of enumerating the number of people living in poverty by measuring their calorie intake to one based on their spending on essential goods and services.

Based on the new method, it found 37.2% of Indian's people living below the poverty line.  The report found that over 40% of rural people survive on a per capita expenditure of 447 rupees ($9.6) every month, spending on bare essentials like food, fuel, clothing and footwear.

Correspondents say that for all of India's impressive economic progress, the number of Indians living in extreme poverty is not declining fast enough.  Unless India commits itself to greater social spending and intervention, it will be difficult to reduce poverty, correspondents say.

Moderate economic growth in the Philippines in recent years did not translate to poverty reduction, which has been slower compared to the country's neighbors, said an Asian Development Bank report released Thursday.

Household poverty rose by 2.5 percentage points to 26.9 percent from 2003 to 2006, and the number of poor people swelled by nearly 4 million people to 27.6 million despite an average domestic economic growth rate of 5.3 percent for the period, it said.

The level of inequality among Filipinos - who currently number around 90 million today - has hardly changed for more than 20 years and remains high compared to other countries in Asia, limiting the beneficial impact of economic growth on poverty, said the study.

The report also said the Philippine poverty reduction rate of 0.47 percent per year between 1990 to 2005 was slower than in Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam, adding that only in the Philippines has the overall number of poor people increased during that period.

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Social Services Minister Salim Segaf Al Jufri is optimistic that the poverty level in Indonesia is decreasing.

The target is to achieve 10 – 8 percent decrease in five years. “If the poverty eradication program is carried out consistently and supported by the public, [the poverty level can be reduced].

Take KUBE [joint business group] for an example, if it is managed professionally, it can increase the family’s income,” said the Minister in Sumedang on Monday, Dec. 7.

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Levels of poverty, unemployment and repossessions started rising in the UK as early as 2004, well before the recession kicked in, according to a new report today.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation said its findings showed the country had to recover from "deep-seated" problems which were re-emerging before the economic downturn.

Using official government data, the group said 2004/5 marked a "key turning point", with poverty, unemployment and repossessions all starting to rise.

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