Impoverished Madagascar is to distribute 15 million free condoms next year to promote safe sex and halt the spread of HIV/AIDS by making its 17 million people familiar with the product as a weapon against AIDS. While the country's infection figure of 1.1 percent of the population is low compared to some countries on Africa's mainland, it is on the rise.

Over 7.6 million Malagasy children will be inoculated against measles this month in the country's largest immunisation campaign. UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) information officer Misbah Sheik told IRIN the campaign would run until 8 October and reach the children through a "bottom-up" strategy to be rolled out in each of the country's 111 districts.

The use of condoms has steadily climbed among Malagasy youth as the government and NGOs increase their efforts to raise awareness about the dangers of unsafe sex. According to Population Services International (PSI), an American non-profit organisation, safer sex campaigns targeting young people were as important as service delivery.

The U.N. children's agency UNICEF is launching a measles vaccination campaign in Madagascar designed to reach 7.5 million children and halt a potentially deadly epidemic, the agency said last Tuesday.

According to UNICEF, chronic poverty is the main reason for an estimated 1 million children not attending school on the giant Indian Ocean Island, but efforts are now underway to equip the youth with income generating skills. Last week, 258 out-of-school youth "graduated" from the DESCOL initiative, a project operating in 17 districts in the central Antananarivo region. Each district identifies local entrepreneurs who transfer their skills, such as baking, motor mechanics or tailoring, to young apprentices.

The World Bank has approved its largest environment grant to help the Indian Ocean island of Madagascar protect its unique environment and native species, the bank said on Wednesday. Madagascar, the world's fourth largest island, has a unique array of wildlife, flora and fauna but the impoverished country has few funds available to address conservation concerns. The grant of $49 million will be used to expand protected areas, establish conservation sites in forests and transfer forest management responsibilities to local communities.

Police in Madagascar have rescued 11 babies between the ages of three weeks and nine months who were in the process of being sent abroad. The rescue followed a raid on a house in the capital Antananarivo where eight men were arrested and charged following a police inquiry on illegal child trafficking. The illicit acquisition and adoption of babies has increased during the last four years in Madagascar, according to Director of Judicial Police Mr Albert Rakotondravao.

Chemonics International seeks a Women’s Legal Rights Advisor to implement the USAID-funded Women’s Legal Rights Initiative in Madagascar to provide guidance on women’s legal rights programs and activities in the region; liase with the sectors of justice, government, civil society; and work in cooperation with the USAID Mission in Madagascar.

In just one month Jocelyn, 12, has learnt to read. He is attending one of Madagascar’s 260 learning centres scattered in villages in the poor provinces of Fianarantsoa, Majunga, Tamatave and Toliara. The centre is Jocelyn’s first contact with an educational institution. Like many children living in rural Madagascar, Jocelyn’s parents, who are farmers, could not afford to send him to school. “I hope the courses won’t stop. I want to continue to learn,” Jocelyn says, while proudly reading to his parents from his book. Madagascar’s government and the UN System Joint Programme to Promote Basic Education for All Malagasy Children are behind this innovative non-formal education programme.

Conservation and sustainable development efforts in the isolated and biodiverse nation of Madagascar received a boost Wednesday in the form of four grants totalling $1.6 million from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation based in Chicago. The good news comes just as the island nation is cleaning up after tropical cyclone Elita which hit Madagascar on January 28 with winds averaging 200 miles per hour.

The authorities in Madagascar remained tight-lipped on Wednesday over whether the government would seek to extradite Didier Ratsiraka from France after a court had sentenced the former president to five years in prison for his role in last year's political crisis. Ratsiraka, who fled the country at the height of the political upheaval, did not appear in court at Monday's hearing.

At the official launch of a national campaign to end child sexual exploitation in Madagascar, UNICEF and International Labour Organisation (ILO) presented the resumes of three studies that highlighted the sexual exploitation of children in Madagascar. According to the UNICEF-sponsored study, between 30 per cent to 50 per cent of all sex workers in two of country's main cities, Nosy Be and Tamatave, were children under the age of 18.

Madagascar said Tuesday it planned to more than triple the size of its nature reserves to help protect some of the planet's weirdest and rarest creatures. Long isolated from the rest of the world, the African island's wildlife has evolved in unique and startling ways, making it an ecological treasure trove.

A forgotten famine is reducing one of the world's richest stores of biodiversity, the rainforests of Madagascar, to ash. Farmers stricken by drought on the Indian Ocean island are burning swaths of primeval woodland to make charcoal.

On the southern side of Madagascar lies a wilderness paradise. The Indian Ocean washes over white sands. There is a primeval rainforest which is home to thousands of plant and animal species found nowhere else. It is here that the world's largest mining company, Rio Tinto, intends to dredge hundreds of millions of tonnes of soil over 6 000 hectares to extract ilmenite, a mineral used to make paint and toothpaste.

- More than a year since President Marc Ravalomanana took power in Madagascar, close to an estimated one-third of the residents in the capital, Antananarivo, remain mired in poverty. "The truth is that nothing has changed. But I still believe President Ravalomanana will do something," said 36-year-old Aimeline Razanadrosoa. "We need everything - food, water, clothes; but also some money so that my children can go to school."

A special body spearheaded by the president has been created to step up Madagascar's HIV/AIDS prevention drive. Malagasy President Marc Ravalomanana, who is leading the initiative, will oversee a technical committee to implement the country's HIV/AIDS campaign.

The people of Madagascar are voting for the first time since the disputed elections almost a year ago that threw the island into political turmoil. The election is for candidates to Madagascar's parliament - but it is being seen as a crucial test of popularity and legitimacy for President Ravalomanana.

As the first anniversary of last year's disputed presidential elections approaches, Amnesty International has called for impartial and independent investigations into all reports of human rights violations and abuses unleashed in the context of the political unrest following the elections.

The African Union will this week suggest that Madagascar delay a general election planned for December 15, a senior South African official said on Sunday.