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Ousted Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak and his two sons to three years in prison today in a retrial of the corruption case brought against them in the wake of the 2011 'Arab Spring' uprising that deposed the long-time ruler.

"The ruling of the court is three years in prison without parole for Mohamed Hosni Mubarak and Gamal Mohamed Hosni Mubarak and Alaa Mohamed Hosni Mubarak," Judge Hassan Hassanein announced on Saturday, according to Reuters.

It is the latest in a long and winding judicial road for Mubarak.

Last year, an Egyptian court overturned Mubarak's murder conviction stemming from his alleged order to kill hundreds of anti-government protesters in the run-up to his ouster.

The case decided on Saturday refers to as the "presidential palaces" affair and relates to charges that Mubarak and his sons embezzled millions in state funds over the period of the leader's 30-year rule.

As Reuters explains:

"Last May, Mubarak was sentenced to three years in prison on charges of diverting public funds earmarked to renovate presidential palaces and using the money to upgrade family properties. His two sons were given four-year jail terms in the same case.

"In January, Egypt's high court overturned the convictions, and the case went back to court for retrial."

According to The Associated Press, the verdict includes a $16.3 million fine to be paid by the three men and calls for the return of the $2.7 million they embezzled.

A lawyer for Mubarak says the judge's decision can be appealed, according to AP.

Arab Spring

Hosni Mubarak

Egypt

Pregnant mothers are often reminded that they're eating for two. But 17-year-old Gladys barely has enough food for one.

Gladys, who is pregnant with her first child, lives in Malawi, a country with widespread poverty and malnutrition. In 2012, 78 out of every 1,000 children died before they turned 5, according to UNICEF. Nearly half of all children are stunted. That means their height is below the fifth percentile for their age, and they are prone to chronic diseases and tend to struggle in school.

i

Time for a peanut butter break. Courtesy of Project Peanut Butter hide caption

itoggle caption Courtesy of Project Peanut Butter

Time for a peanut butter break.

Courtesy of Project Peanut Butter

Now one pediatrician is tackling the problem by focusing not just on the children but young mothers like Gladys. And he's using peanut butter as his tool.

The problem is, malnutrition often starts in the womb. "A third of stunting occurs before birth and there's nothing you can do once the child is born," says Dr. Mark Manary, a pediatrician at Washington University in St. Louis and the founder of Project Peanut Butter.

His Malawi-based organization uses a locally produced high-calorie, nutrient-rich peanut paste called chiponde to treat malnourished children in Malawi, Sierra Leone and Ghana. It's one of many therapeutic foods aid agencies used to treat severe malnutrition.

Manary's latest study, called Mamachiponde, tests how effective the product is in helping pregnant adolescents in southern Malawi deliver a healthy baby. An estimated 1 in 36 women in the country dies from pregnancy complications. Young teenagers are the most vulnerable, he says: "Many are still girls. The body hasn't had correct nutrition to develop completely."

Since last spring, Manary and his team has worked with 15 clinics in Malawi to enroll pregnant women, 16 and up, whose mid-upper arm circumference (MUAC) is less than 23 centimeters, or 9 inches. That's a sign of malnutrition.

The mothers-to-be are given a two-week supply of one of three treatments. One group gets corn soy blend fortified with folic acid and iron, the Malawi standard supplement for pregnant women. Another gets the corn blend plus prenatal vitamins. The third group receives chiponde, which has twice the recommended intake of proteins, vitamins and other nutrients.

When the mothers run out of the food, they return to the clinic for another two-week supply. They keep getting treatment until their arm circumference is more than 23 centimeters. The team then monitors the mother until she gives birth. Ideally, she would deliver a baby heavier than 5.5 pounds — the World Health Organization cutoff for low birth weight. But Dr. Peggy Papathakis, the study's director on ground, says she'd like to see a newborn be at least 3,000 grams, or 6.6 pounds.

In late April, Gladys, the 17-year-old, gave birth to her first child. The baby girl clocked in at 5.7 pounds after having been part of the study for roughly a month. The mother reported that she ate all the food she'd been given, but Papathakis remains doubtful.

Gladys lives in a small home with her husband, mother and seven younger siblings. "Ideally our foods are for the pregnant woman," says Papathakis, a nutritionist from California Polytechnic State University. "But you can imagine, there is no way she is going to keep that for herself."

So nurses often coach the pregnant young mothers on how to explain to their families that the food is important for the mother and the baby.

More than 1,000 women and teens have been enrolled in the study, and researchers expect to test a total of 2,000 girls by 2016 with the help of a $50,000 grant from The Sackler Institute for Nutrition Science. It explores a field that hasn't been studied enough, says Mireille Mclean, the institute's associate director and one of the judges. "Right now we consider that an adolescent pregnant woman has the same needs as an adult woman but it's probably not true."

Mclean says she hope the study will help generate nutritional guidelines that are geared toward teen mothers.

The Mamachiponde study is a good start to a complex issue, says Dr. David Sanders, a pediatrician at the University of the Western Cape in South Africa, who isn't involved in the study. But he says that the key to helping young women in Malawi is preventing unwanted pregnancy.

Sanders applauds Manary for producing the chiponde in Malawi -- that's good for the economy — rather than flying in therapeutic food from outside "You have to in the long run improve people's livelihoods," he says. "We can do that in part by ensuring that these kind of interventions stimulate local productivity and put more money in the pockets of poor peasants."

Sanders also warns against turning a food problem into a medical one by making people think they are getting medicine. It's more helpful, he says, to clearly tell the mother that their children are eating peanuts. That way the mothers will know that the key to stopping malnutrition isn't some mysterious medicine but something that they can get locally and add into their diets.

For now, Papathakis says she's happy to just be helping a group of women too often neglected: "You don't get a healthy infant unless you have a healthy mother."

peanuts

pregnant teenagers

malawi

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On the northern side of Monrovia, a team of nurses are vaccinating children on the veranda of the AfroMed clinic. Tables with boxes of rubber gloves and vaccine coolers are arranged in the shade out of the intense, tropical sun.

A mother rocks her crying baby, who's just been jabbed with the measles shot. Martina Seyah, who brought her 2-year-old daughter, Irena, to get the shot, says parents in the neighborhood are very worried their kids could get measles or other diseases.

Just as Liberia is getting ready to declare itself Ebola-free, another disease has cropped up. This January a measles outbreak erupted. So far this year, there've been 562 cases; seven were fatal.

Goats and Soda

On Saturday, The Ebola Outbreak In Liberia Should Officially Be Over

"To have this number in just the first quarter of the year is definitely a huge outbreak," says Dr. Zakari Wambai, head of the World Health Organization's immunization program in Liberia. He says in the eight years he's been in the country, there has never been a measles outbreak anywhere near this scale. Now cases are being reported all across the country.

The eruption of measles, he says, is a direct result of the Ebola outbreak.

That's because when Ebola hit, it caused an almost complete collapse of health care in Liberia, including routine childhood immunization programs. Once clinics did start to reopen, parents didn't want to bring their kids anywhere near health care centers, which had been hotbeds of Ebola transmission.

"Because of Ebola there was the suspension of routine immunization services in many parts of the country," Wambai says. "Also we couldn't conduct the follow-up campaign scheduled for last quarter of 2014."

And it's not just measles that's making a comeback after the collapse of Liberia's vaccination programs.

Whooping cough has again reared its head in two parts of the country and sickened more than 500 children. Liberians had almost forgotten about this disease because of the high immunization coverage. In 2013, the World Health Organization reported that Liberia vaccinated 89 percent of all 1-year-olds against whooping cough.

But that high coverage was in the years after Liberia's brutal civil wars and before the arrival of Ebola.

Goats and Soda

Scientists Crack A 50-Year-Old Mystery About The Measles Vaccine

The Ebola outbreak killed more than 4,600 Liberians, including 189 health care workers. The unabated spread of the virus forced hospitals and clinics to close, and it undermined Liberians' confidence in what was already a weak public health care system.

Now as Liberia moves on from Ebola, rebuilding the health care system and restoring its immunization programs are two of the government's top priorities. As part of that effort, the country launched a nationwide measles vaccination campaign on Friday. Health officials hope to reach almost 700,000 children in a country of 4 million people.

Liberian officials are hoping to vaccinate 95 percent of children under 5 years old against measles. They tried a similar campaign back in February when the measles outbreak was just gaining steam. But that effort failed, and again Ebola was to blame.

That February immunization drive had coincided with the launch of an experimental Ebola vaccine for adults. Parents confused the two and refused to bring their children to the health clinics.

Officials say they've sent out Red Cross and other volunteers to assure parents that this immunization drive is only about protecting their kids from measles.

immunization

vaccination

ebola

measles

Liberia

The Nike Corporation says the lower tariffs promised by a proposed Asia-Pacific trade deal would allow it to speed up development of advanced manufacturing, supporting up to 10,000 domestic jobs over the next decade.

The announcement comes as President Obama visits Nike headquarters to promote the trade deal, known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership or TPP. Critics have questioned the Beaverton, Ore. backdrop, noting that Nike currently manufactures virtually all of its shoes and apparel in low-wage countries such as Vietnam.

"Footwear tariff relief would allow Nike to accelerate development of new advanced manufacturing methods and a domestic supply chain to support U.S. based manufacturing," the company said in a statement.

U.S. companies and consumers paid $2.7 billion dollars in tariffs on shoes last year, according to the Footwear Distributors and Retailers of America, an industry trade group. Of that total, only about $460 million would be subject to relief under the trade deal. China, the number one source of America shoe imports, is not part of the agreement, though it could conceivably join in the future.

The shoe tariff reduction under the Trans-Pacific Partnership would only cover some countries where American shoes are produced. China, the number one producer for the U.S. is not covered by the current TPP proposal. Nike, Footwear Distributors and Retailers of America hide caption

itoggle caption Nike, Footwear Distributors and Retailers of America

The potential tariff relief on shoes from countries that are part of the deal represents a fraction of Nike's profit last year of $2.7 billion, on sales of $28 billion. (A company spokesman declined to say what fraction of total U.S. shoe tariffs are for Nike shoes.)

"U.S. manufacturing would allow Nike to deliver product faster to market, create innovative performance footwear, provide customized solutions for consumers, and advance sustainability goals," the company said in its statement.

"This advanced manufacturing model is expected to lead to the creation of up to 10,000 manufacturing and engineering jobs in addition to thousands of construction jobs and up to 40,000 indirect supply chain and service jobs in the United States over the next decade."

Critics of the trade deal were not impressed. "Just last year alone Nike cut half the number of American manufacturing jobs it now says it would create over a decade if TPP is enacted," said Lori Wallach, the director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch. "Nike's job creation claim mimics the broken job creation promises that multinational corporations have used to push for past controversial trade pacts, only to turn around and offshore U.S. jobs after the pacts took effect."

Nike employs 26,000 people in the U.S. A million more work in the overseas contract factories that supply the company's products.

In its most recent sustainability report, Nike noted that nearly a third of those factories fall short of its own labor improvement targets, with wages and work hours the biggest complaints. Obama says one goal of the trade deal is to raise labor standards throughout the participating countries.

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