GENEVA | Fri Jan 27, 2012 12:19pm EST GENEVA (Reuters) – More than 1 million children in the Sahel are at risk of severe malnutrition and urgent action is needed to avert starvation akin to that in Somalia, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) warned on Friday. The agency appealed for $67 million for 8 countries in the region where it said instability fueled by increasing activities of al-Qaeda and Boko Haram was compounding humanitarian needs. They are Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and the northern regions of Cameroon, Nigeria and Senegal. “In the Sahel we are facing a nutrition crisis of a larger magnitude than usual with over 1 million children at risk of severe, acute malnutrition,” Rima Salah, acting UNICEF deputy executive director, told a news briefing. “The countries in the Sahel, for example, if we do not now attend to their needs, it will become like Somalia and other countries,” she said. “We have to prevent it before it becomes a disaster.” She was referring to the anarchic Horn of Africa country where the U.N. says 250,000 still live in famine conditions due to drought and conflict and a total of 4 million need aid. More than nine million people in five countries in Africa’s Sahel region face food crisis next year, following low rainfall, poor harvests, high food prices and a drop in remittances from migrants, aid agency Oxfam said last month. The funds for the Sahel, for an initial six-month phase, will provide therapeutic feeding to malnourished children and campaigns to prevent the spread of epidemics including cholera. Some families will receive cash to cover higher food prices. It is part of UNICEF’s overall appeal of $1.28 billion for 98 million women and children in 25 countries. Somalia and other Horn of Africa countries (Djibouti, Ethiopia and Kenya) account for nearly one-third of the total amount sought. “There is growing instability in the Sahel region, fuelled by the Arab Spring and increasing activities of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and Boko Haram, all compounding the humanitarian needs of children and women in the region,” UNICEF’s report, “2012 Humanitarian Action for Children,” said on Friday. The Libyan civil war might have given militant groups in Africa’s Sahel region like Boko Haram and al Qaeda access to large weapons caches, according to a U.N. report released in New York on Thursday. The U.N. report on the impact of the Libyan civil war on countries of the Sahel region that straddle the Sahara – including Nigeria, Niger and Chad – also said some national authorities believe the Islamist sect Boko Haram, which killed more than 500 people last year and more than 250 this year in Nigeria, has increasing links to al Qaeda’s North African wing. (Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay Editing by Maria Golovnina.) Link this Share this Digg this Email Reprints

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BSkyB chairman James Murdoch speaks at the BSkyB Annual General Meeting at the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in central London November 29, 2011. Credit: Reuters/Timothy Anderson/BSkyB/Handout By Kate Holton and Georgina Prodhan LONDON | Fri Jan 27, 2012 12:06pm EST LONDON (Reuters) – News Corp executive James Murdoch, under pressure from a phone-hacking scandal at the News of the World tabloid, is to quit the board of drug maker GlaxoSmithKline as he spends more time on his new role in the United States. Murdoch was promoted last March to become News Corp’s deputy chief operating officer and head of its international operations, in a move seen at the time as confirming his status as heir apparent to his father Rupert Murdoch’s media empire. But his move to the company’s headquarters in New York was delayed by the escalation of the scandal at the now-defunct tabloid, which fell within his previous remit as chief executive for Europe and Asia. The scandal has cast doubt on his future career and his suitability to continue as chairman of British satellite broadcaster BSkyB, a company he previously ran and in which News Corp owns 39 percent. News Corp also announced Friday that Murdoch’s right-hand man, Matthew Anderson — head of strategy and corporate affairs for Europe and Asia — would step down at the end of March to return to his native San Francisco Bay area. GlaxoSmithKline said in a statement: “James has taken this decision to focus on his current duties as non-executive chairman of BSkyB, and following his decision to re-locate to the United States, as chairman and chief executive, international, of News Corporation.” Britain’s biggest pharmaceutical company also announced a raft of other changes to its board: Crispin Davis, Robert Wilson and Larry Culp will step down in 2013. Murdoch will not stand for re-election at this year’s shareholder meeting in May. Murdoch, 39, also recently quit the boards of the publishing units within News Corp’s British newspaper arm. GSK said board members were expected to attend half a dozen two-to-three-day board and committee meetings a year plus travel and other meetings. Murdoch was paid 98,000 pounds ($154,000) in shares for serving on GSK’s board in 2010. At the height of the phone-hacking scandal in July, GSK said Murdoch had made a “strong contribution” to the firm and would stay on its board but added that it would watch investigations into the phone-hacking scandal. Murdoch took charge of News International only after the phone-hacking had taken place, but has been accused of either leading a cover-up or not taking adequate action to ascertain the scale of the problem. He has denied all knowledge of phone hacking and blamed many of those around him. Last week, News International settled a string of legal claims after it admitted that people working for the paper had hacked in to the private phones of celebrities and others to generate stories. A British parliamentary committee is due to publish a report in the next few weeks over the scandal, which could criticise Murdoch for his handling of the matter. James Murdoch is also on the board of the auction house Sotheby’s, which is listed in the United States. ($1 = 0.6370 British pounds) (Additional reporting by Adveith Nair; Editing by David Cowell) Link this Share this Digg this Email Reprints

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