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From student to UN chief
UN -- Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had an emotional reunion yesterday with the woman who hosted him in the United States nearly five decades ago when he was a young student on his first-ever trip outside his home country of the Republic of Korea. Libba Patterson, 93, beamed with pride as she hugged Mr. Ban, who spent 8 days at her home in Novato, a city outside of San Francisco, California, in 1962. “You are so wise for your age,” she recalled telling a solemn 18-year-old Mr. Ban...

Guinea headed for free election, analysts say
Africa: The Good News -- Former members of a government that took power after a 2008 coup will be allowed to run in next month's landmark election, underlining the difficulty of staging the first free polls in Guinea since independence more than 50 years ago.The military has long held near-absolute power in this West African nation. Still, analysts say the ex-junta candidates announced late Monday are only a minor setback and that they cannot stop the momentum for democracy after decades of dictatorship. "The mood is optimistic. People are putting their faith in the fact that a relatively clean election will take place," said Michael McGovern, an anthropologist at Yale University who studies Guinea and was recently in the country...

UN and UNICEF urge all countries to adopt measures protecting children
UNICEF -- UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake and other child-rights advocates came together at UNICEF headquarters in New York this morning, calling for all countries to take extra steps aimed at protecting children from violence and exploitation. Ten years ago, the UN General Assembly adopted two Optional Protocols supplementing the wide-ranging human rights protections of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, or CRC. The protocols offer additional protection for children who are vulnerable to armed conflict, or to being sold or exploited for purposes of prostitution or pornography.

In South Africa, an unlikely leader on AIDS
NY Times -- In a nation ravaged by AIDS, a disease still hidden in shadows of stigma and shame, President Jacob Zuma of South Africa has begun to engage in an extraordinarily open conversation about sex, AIDS and H.I.V. prevention, one ignited in part by his own recent admission that he had unprotected sex during an extramarital affair. Last month, as he announced a vast expansion of H.I.V. testing and AIDS services, he publicly took an H.I.V. test and disclosed that he had tested negative for the virus. Then in a frank interview on Thursday, Mr. Zuma said that he had been circumcised and had encouraged his sons to undergo the procedure, which can reduce a man’s risk of contracting H.I.V. by more than half...