“Nearly all mothers are physically able to breastfeed and will do so if they have accurate information and support,” said Carmen Casanovas, breastfeeding expert with the Department of Nutrition for Health and Development of the UN World Health Organization (WHO).

“But in many cases, women are discouraged from doing so, and are misled to believe that they are giving their children a better start in life by buying commercial substitutes,” Dr. Casanovas said in a news release.

Breastfeeding, WHO stressed, is “the best source of nourishment” for infants and young children and one of the most effective ways to ensure child health and survival. People who were breastfed as babies are less likely to be overweight or obese later in life, less prone to diabetes and may perform better in intelligence tests.

However, globally, only an estimated 38 per cent of infants are exclusively breastfed for six months, the agency noted.

Concerned that breast-milk substitutes were being marketed to mothers too aggressively, the 27th World Health Assembly in 1974 urged member States to review sales promotion activities on baby foods and to introduce appropriate remedial measures, including advertisement codes and legislation where necessary.

This led, in 1981, to agreement on the International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes, and the adoption of several subsequent resolutions on the matter. The new report, published ahead of World Breastfeeding Week, found that only 37 countries, or 19 per cent of those reporting, have passed laws reflecting all the Code’s recommendations.

For example, 69 countries (35 per cent) fully prohibit advertising of breast-milk substitutes; 62 countries (31 per cent) completely prohibit free samples or low-cost supplies for health services; and 64 countries (32 per cent) completely prohibit gifts of any kind from relevant manufacturers to health workers.

In addition, 83 countries (42 per cent) require a message about the superiority of breastfeeding on breast-milk substitute labels, and only 45 countries (23 per cent) report having a functioning implementation and monitoring system.

The report stated that mothers are often inundated with incorrect and biased information both directly, through advertising, health claims, information packs and sales representatives, and indirectly through the public health system.

For example, distribution of “educational materials” on breastfeeding produced by manufacturers of infant formula have a negative impact on exclusive breastfeeding, as does the distribution of samples of infant formula.

For this year’s World Breastfeeding Week, which runs from 1 to 7 August, WHO and partners are calling for more support for breastfeeding mothers. It noted, among other things, that health facilities that support breastfeeding – by making trained breastfeeding counsellors available to new mothers – encourage higher rates of the practice.The agency also pointed out that breast milk gives infants all the nutrients they need for healthy development. It is safe and contains antibodies that help protect infants from common childhood illnesses such as diarrhoea and pneumonia, the two primary causes of child mortality worldwide. Breast milk is readily available and affordable, which helps to ensure that infants get adequate nutrition.

Infant formula, WHO said, does not contain the antibodies found in breast milk. There are also risks arising from the use of unsafe water and unsterilized equipment or the potential presence of bacteria or other contaminants in powdered formula.

Breastfeeding also benefits mothers, the agency added, noting that exclusive breastfeeding is associated with a natural (though not fail-safe) method of birth control (98 per cent protection in the first six months after birth). It also reduces risks of breast and ovarian cancer later in life and helps women return to their pre-pregnancy weight faster.

Their only crime was to disseminate information and spread the truth about the bloody crackdown that is still in progress against the Syrian people. Their main weapons are mobile phones and the Internet.

To pay tribute to the unprecedented number of citizen journalists who have lost their lives to send out pictures of the uprising, Reporters Without Borders and its advertising agency JWT Paris, through a unique live Tweet, are bringing to life the experiences of people who find ways of circulating information in the midst of danger.

The campaign image shows a lifeless hand covered in earth and blood. Next to it, there is a smart phone with a QR code on its illuminated screen. When it is scanned, a Twitter-style application starts up, taking the user into the live tweet of an imaginary citizen journalist in the midst of the conflict in Homs. The application shows his final minutes in detail through his feed. Events gradually take an unexpected turn until the final outcome.

Known as #DeadTweet, the press and poster campaign uses the QR code to raise awareness about citizens’ efforts to cover conflicts in countries where authoritarian governments impose a media blackout by trying to keep out foreign journalists. When journalists can no longer do their job, these citizens are an essential information link and play their part in informing the world, sometimes paying the price with their lives.

At the end of the experience, a short awareness-raising message appears and the user can share it on social networks and help spread the message to as many people as possible.

Several netizens and bloggers were also detained, including Khalifa Al-Nuaimi (https://kalnuaimi.wordpress.com), Rashid Omran Al Shamsi (http://rashedalshamsi.blogspot.fr), Omran Al Radhwan (http://omran83.tumblr.com), Abdullah Al-Haajri (https://alhajria.wordpress.com/), the lawyer Salim Hamdoon Alshehhi (http://salemalshehhi.wordpress.com), and Juma Darwish Al-Felasi (http://alfelasi.com). Two human rights lawyers, Mohamed Al-Mansoori (http://www.emasc.co), the former president of the United Arab Emirates Jurists Association, and Mohamed Abdulah Al-Roken, a defence lawyer in the in so-called “UAE 5” case, were also on the list of detainees.

The group faces charges of opposing the constitution and the basic principles of the UAE ruling system, in addition to having links and affiliations to organisations with foreign agendas. The Abu Dhabi public prosecutor, Salem Saeed Kubaish, said they “are being held in preventive custody for investigation”.

The arrests were made a day after the authorities announced the existence of a group alleged to be plotting against national security.

Reporters Without Borders calls for their immediate release. “The authorities must put an end to successive arrests of campaigners and human rights campaigners, which flagrantly violates basic freedoms,” the organization said. “The authorities wilfully regard any sign of criticism of the system as a danger to national security in order to stifle dissent. These attempts at intimidation are doomed to fail.”

The group of prisoners of conscience in the country, known as the “UAE 27” then the “UAE 30”, continues to grow. Today 31 activists and campaigners are in detention, all of whom have been arrested since March. Most are signatories of a 2011 petition calling for the Federal National Council, the UAE’s advisory council, to be given legislative powers and control over the executive.

It is not the first time the government has acted to conceal criticism. In April last year, a group of netizens known as the “UAE 5” were arrested for publicly insulting UAE leaders and calling for anti-government demonstrations.

Ahmed Mansoor, a blogger and administrator of the democracy discussion forum Al-Hewar, Farhad Salem Al-Shehh, also a blogger and the forum’s co-administrator, Nasser bin Ghaith, a writer and professor at Abu Dhabi’s Université Paris-Sorbonne, and the activists Hassan Ali Al-Khamis and Ahmed Abdul Khaleq, who have expressed themselves freely on the Internet and also signed a petition urging the authorities to carry out reforms. After a trial, they were sentenced on 27 November last year to between two and three years’ imprisonment for insulting UAE leaders and calling for anti-government demonstrations. They were pardoned and released the following day.

The activist Ahmed Abdul Khaleq was deported to Thailand on 16 July after being falsely summoned to a government office for administrative reasons on May 22. Stripped of their citizenship, he and his family were granted Comoros passports and economic citizenship, without political rights. In theory, this should allow them to live in the UAE and eventually to become naturalized citizens on the basis of a 2009 agreement between the two countries.

The United Arab Emirates is among countries under surveillance on the list of Internet Enemies published by Reporters Without Borders in March. For months the government has been stepping up pressure on netizens, cracking down on dissident voices and calls for democratic reform.