PORT-AU-PRINCE, Dec 23 2010 – The cholera crisis is forcing Haitian authorities to address an unpleasant and now life-threatening problem – untreated feces.
A desludging truck shoots excreta into the pit at Trutier. Credit: WASH Cluster, Haiti
The first infections likely came from cholera-infected feces in a river, and feces is a main vector of the vibrio cholera bacteria. But Haitian authorities have been slow to face the problem.
With at least 2,591 dead and over 63,000 hospitalised …
Ranjit Devraj
NEW DELHI, Feb 10 2011 (IPS) – Activists hope that a popular agitation against the setting up of a factory to manufacture asbestos products in the eastern Bihar state will result in a nationwide ban on the large-scale import into this country of the deadly mineral fibre.
Rally against an asbestos plant in Muzzaffarpur, Bihar. Credit: Ban Asbestos Network of India
Following six months of agitation against the setting up of the factory in the Chainpur-Bishunpur area of Bi…
Julio Godoy
BERLIN, Mar 14 2011 (IPS) – The unfolding nuclear catastrophe in Japan, triggered by last Friday s massive earthquake and tsunami, followed by a chain of explosions in atomic power plants, has forced the German government to rethink its own nuclear energy policy.
Pressed by the opposition and the anti-atom movement, Chancellor Angela Merkel announced on March 14 that her centre-right coalition government, made up of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Free Democratic Party (FDP), had decided to temporarily reverse its earlier decision to prolong the lifetime of all nuclear power plants operating in the country.
Explaining a three-month moratorium, Merkel said that after the nuclear catastrophe in Japan we cannot go on as if nothing had happened. She a…
Helda Martínez
BOGOTA, Apr 7 2011 (IPS) – The announcement of progress towards making synthetic vaccines against 517 infectious diseases, and the award of an international prize for his work have stirred up lively controversy around Colombian pathologist Manuel Elkin Patarroyo, a malaria vaccine pioneer.
Manuel Elkin Patarroyo Credit: Manuel Elkin Patarroyo
While the scientific community complains that the media are making a big fuss over the announcement before the effectiveness of the vaccines has been confirmed, lawsuits have been brought about alleged an…
Timothy Spence
BRUSSELS, May 11 2011 (IPS) – British researchers are working on techniques to improve seeds chances of surviving drought by tapping the potential of little-known proteins that regulate water intake.
Lorenzo Frigerio and other plant scientists at the University of Warwick are researching seeds that would use water more sparingly and in turn boost crop defences against climate change in fast- growing developing nations that are the most vulnerable to freshwater shortages and food insecurity.
Asia s thirst for water will exceed supply by 40 percent within two decades, experts told the Asian Development Bank (ADB) board of governors last week. With 80 percent of the region s water consumed in agricultural production, water shortages could severely affect f…
Emilio Godoy * – Tierramérica
MEXICO CITY, Jun 13 2011 (IPS) – In the 1998 medical thriller Toxin by U.S. novelist Robin Cook, the ground beef in hamburgers is contaminated with a deadly strain of the Escherichia coli or E. coli bacterium, unleashing a massive epidemic. The novel was inspired by a real outbreak that had taken place several years earlier.
Market in the indigenous village of Oxchuc, Chiapas, Mexico. Credit: Mauricio Ramos/IPS
The appearance of a new strain of E. coli in Germany, …
PORTLAND, Oregon, Jun 23 2011 – You might say Nick Patton was born to fish. Literally born on a boat, Nick spent his earliest years living in orphanages along the Alaskan coastline. He ran away at the age of eight and quickly learned how to take care of himself and to rely on others traveling in groups around the Pacific Northwest, picking apples and doing day labour.
Traumatic brain injuries often go undiagnosed, especially on the streets. Credit: Street Roots
He was only 11 yea…
Miriam Gathigah
NAIROBI, Jul 27 2011 (IPS) – On the road between the Kenyan and Somali border lie the dead bodies of children who have succumbed to the famine and the hardships of making the journey from their drought-stricken villages to Kenya.
A child from drought-stricken southern Somalia who survived the long journey to an aid camp in the Somali capital Moga…
Suvendrini Kakuchi
TOKYO, Sep 3 2011 (IPS) – The Fukushima disaster has thrown up the first opportunity in decades to bring justice to thousands of unskilled workers who risk radioactive contamination to keep Japan s nuclear power plants running.
Fukushima has created public awareness on a section of nuclear workers castigated as radiation- exposed people but forming the dark underbelly of an industry that depends on them, says Minoru Nasu, spokesperson for the Japan Day Labourers Union.
Nasu, a long-time labour activist, says that while nuclear industry relies heavily on unskilled workers it has left it to thuggish subcontractors to marshal them as daily wagers.
The common practice for the past several decades can best be described as human auctioning, Nasu …
Kristin Palitza
BUKAVU, DR Congo, Oct 17 2011 (IPS) – Angeline Mwarusena, 61, sits on a small wooden bench in front of her hut, head bent, shoulders slumped. Her voice is barely audible. Four years ago, three soldiers from the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) entered her home, hit her and raped her repeatedly. One after the other.
The village of rape survivor Angeline Mwarusena continues to be threatened by militia. …