Morning Briefing

"Child marriage is a one-way ticket to a life of poverty, illiteracy and powerlessness for girls and the international community needs to take urgent action to stop it," according to an analysis (.pdf) published Friday by former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, the Guardian reports. "Brown's review, seen exclusively by the Guardian, says that the issue of child brides has been 'conspicuous by its absence' in the efforts to cut global poverty, bring down child and maternal death rates and get children into school, which are stated Millennium Development Goals to be achieved by 2015," the newspaper notes.