HONG KONG: Local pop star Leon Lai has visited East Timor to raise awareness about child poverty for the United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef), the group said yesterday.

Footage of Lai's visit, which began on Sunday, will be used for a television fund-raiser, Unicef said in a statement.

The group said nearly half the children in East Timor under five suffer from malnutrition and 85 of every 1,000 infants die at birth.

East Timor is still recovering from the bloody aftermath of its independence from Indonesia.

Vengeful Indonesian forces and their militia proxies killed nearly 2,000 people after a UN-organised plebiscite in 1999 that ended Indonesia's 24-year occupation.

Separately, Unicef said McDonald's outlets in this territory will sell wristbands to raise funds for the organisation to buy vaccines for children in developing countries. – AP


**Courtesy from Malaysian THE STAR (Tuesday, 19 Apr. 2005)
http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=...724021&sec=asia