Disability News Asia - March 2010

March 12: People with disabilities in Australia live on a lower socio-economic rung than most. People with a disability have poorer educational qualifications, have a higher rate of unemployment

SINGAPORE, March 12: The request has been rejected repeatedly, but Members of Parliament are still trying to get the Government to change its hands-off approach in extending concessions to disabled and elderly people.

March 11: Canada has ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities on the eve of the Paralympic Games in Vancouver.

March 11:DAKAR — A polio vaccination campaign in the violence-wracked central Nigerian city of Jos has been delayed until 13 March due to the violence and an on-going health worker strike, aid workers said.

March 11: Televised coverage of the 2010 Paralympics will be a far cry from the thousands of hours international broadcasters devoted to the recently completed Olympic Games.

March 11: The Family Court has granted a Queensland couple permission to have a hysterectomy performed on their 11-year-old disabled daughter.

Vietnam, March 11: HCMC will open an independent living center for persons with disabilities following the success of such a center in Hanoi, said Vo Thi Hoang Yen, director of the city's Disability Resource and Development program.

March 10: Disabled Nigerians are demanding to be included in the electoral system of Nigeria which gives them the right to contest for any political offices also requested to be given equal opportunity on employments, education and access to public places like there able human counterparts.

March 09: Ah, video and search. Frank Sinatra said it best: Try, try, try to separate them – it’s an illusion. Here’s proof of that: Speech Technology. This week, Google sealed the deal on video search capabilities for its YouTube portal, saying it would provide auto-captions for all of its uploaded videos using proprietary Google’s Speech Technology.

March 09: As people and institutions move away from print and toward electronic books, publishers are making more and more books available in electronic formats, using devices like Amazon's Kindle and Sony's Reader, digitization services like Google's, and downloadable books such as Adobe Digital Editions.