Japan will provide up to $100 million in fresh aid to Ebola-hit West Africa, the government said Friday, after the United States called for further global efforts to combat the deadly virus.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said the aid would come on top of $40 million assistance announced by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in September.

An 18-meter (60-foot) bright pink condom raised eyebrows in Sydney on Friday after it was erected over a Sydney landmark as part of a new awareness campaign about HIV.

The giant sheath was placed over a heritage-listed obelisk at Hyde Park in the center of the city.

The explosion in the world's ageing population presents herculean challenges for health systems, especially in poorer countries, the U.N.'s World Health Organisation (WHO) warned on Thursday.

As people live longer, the need to care for long-term, age-related health problems will grow, it said.

Colon cancer among people under 34 may nearly double over the next 15 years, raising new concerns about how to fight one of the most common and deadly cancers, researchers said Wednesday.

The rise in incidence in the younger population -- blamed on lifestyle choices -- goes against a long-running decline in colon cancer among people over 50.

A French health watchdog recommended Thursday that children under six be denied access to 3D films, computers and video games, and that those up to 13 have "moderate" access.

The advice is based on a "pioneering" analysis of scientific research into the possible impacts of 3D imaging on the developing eye, the agency ANSES said.

A new private sector initiative announced Wednesday will provide at least $450 million in commercial financing to the three West African countries hardest hit by Ebola to promote trade, investment and employment.

The International Finance Corporation, which is part of the World Bank Group, announced that the package will include $250 million in rapid response projects and at least $200 million in investment projects to support the economic recovery of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea after the Ebola outbreak is controlled.

Thousands of people in Sierra Leone are being forced to violate Ebola quarantines to find food because deliveries are not reaching them, aid agencies said.

Large swaths of the West African country have been sealed off to prevent the spread of Ebola, and within those areas many people have been ordered to stay in their homes.

Voters in the Pacific territory of Guam have backed legalizing medical marijuana, despite opposition from governor Eddie Calvo, early results from a referendum showed Wednesday.

About 56 percent of islanders were in favor of the move, according to preliminary results from the referendum held Tuesday to coincide with a scheduled gubernatorial election, which Calvo won in a landslide.

Australia stepped up its response to the Ebola crisis Wednesday in announcing Aus$20 million (U.S.$17 million) to help staff a 100-bed British-built treatment center in Sierra Leone.

It is the first targeted help Canberra has agreed to give to fight the outbreak in West Africa where the deadly disease has killed almost 5,000 people, although it has previously donated cash.

The Singapore government said Tuesday it would phase out public shisha smoking to protect young people who feel that smoking tobacco through  water pipes is less harmful than cigarettes. 

Faishal Ibrahim, parliamentary secretary for the health ministry, told a legislative session that a ban on new licences for shisha imports and sales would come into force this month.