Miriam Gathigah
Iro-nsi Bose Credit: Miriam Gathigah/IPS
BUSAN, South Korea, Dec 1 2011 (IPS) – Gender champions have lauded the Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness for providing gender equality and the empowerment of women a special session, but there is dissatisfaction with Thursday s Busan outcome document.
Iro-nsi Bose Credit: Miriam Gathigah/IPS
Although the document alluded to gender equality, experts feel that the scope is narrow …
The war against terrorism has left many Pakistanis disabled. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS
PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Jan 28 2012 (IPS) – The prolonged United States-led war against terrorism has left a large number of people disabled in Pakistan, compelling the government to institute a rehabilitation plan that will include imparting vocational skills.
The plan, to be put into action in March this year, will start with the compilation of data on people injured in the war in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, says Mahboob ur Rehman, head of t…
Cléo Fatoorehchi
1.1 billion people in developing countries have inadequate access to water, and 2.6 billion lack even the most basic sanitation. Credit: Mantoe Phakathi/IPS
AIX-EN-PROVENCE , Mar 7 2012 (IPS) – Back in 2001, Gérard Mestrallet, CEO of the transnational water giant GDF- Suez, highlighted his company’s commitment to fight for better access to safe water and sanitation throughout the world, in order to put an end to all deadly water-borne diseases, from children’s diarrhoea to parasitic diseases to dysentery…
HELSINKI, Apr 20 2012 (IPS) – When war-torn Somalia was also ravaged by a drought-induced famine last year, which killed tens of thousands and displaced over a million people, international media was quick to blame the Islamist Al-Shabaab for blocking humanitarian assistance from reaching its zone of control in southern Somalia.
Ke…
BUENOS AIRES, May 21 2012 (IPS) – Nearly 29 years after the demise of the 1976-1983 dictatorship in Argentina, successive democratic governments have failed to find a humane way of running the prison system. Preventable deaths, torture and appalling conditions for inmates continue to be reported.
Practices rooted in the dictatorship are still going on in prisons, such as torture, abuse and other mistreatment which must be eradicated, Paula Litvachky, a lawyer for the Centre for Legal and Social Studies (CELS), told IPS.
Of course, there is no real continuity with the seven-year regime that kidnapped, tortured and forcibly disappeared thousands of people, but abuses persist in prisons due to complicity, indifference and lack of accountability and oversight, she said.
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CAPE TOWN, South Africa, Jul 6 2012 (IPS) – Experts say that underfunded pilot universal healthcare sites to be set up by South Africa as part of its proposed national health insurance may be doomed to fail as debate rages about how the move to more equitable healthcare will be funded.
In March, South Africa announced 10 districts across the country that will pilot universal healthcare under its proposed national health insurance (NHI).
Pilot sites have only been allocated an additional R11 million (or 1.3 million dollars) to implement the NHI, according to Di McIntyre, professor at the School of Public Health and Family Medicine at South Africa’s University of Cape Town.
“The NHI is actually about comprehensive reform of the healthcare system…you can’t d…
The wall around the Rigolleau substation graphically reflects the opposition of local residents. Credit: Juan Moseinco/IPS
BUENOS AIRES, Aug 21 2012 (IPS) – Scientific uncertainty about the health impacts of electromagnetic fields is fueling worries among people in the Argentine capital who are demanding that energy power transformers be located far from their neighborhoods.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) does not rule out the possibility that exposure to extremely low frequency electromagnetic fields could pose a risk to human health, even possibly being linked to childhood leukemia. But it says there is not enough evidence to warrant strict recommendations.
One quarter of children in Uruguay are overweight or obese.
Students at Public School 124 in Melilla lining up to buy snacks during recess. Credit: Victoria Rodríguez/IPS
MONTEVIDEO, Oct 10 2012 (IPS) – Uruguayan schoolchildren are learning that cookies, candy, potato chips and soft drinks are bad for their health.
Some schools have taken the initiative and banned junk food from school snacks.
The authorities announced a ban on unhealthy food in schools but have not yet enforced it.
In the meantime, a bill presented by the opposition to prohibit the promotion and advertising of junk food on school premises was passed by the Chamber of Deputies on S…
Less than one-third of Ugandan women use any form of birth control, according to the country’s 2011 Demographic and Health Survey. Credit: Andrew Green/IPS
Nov 14 2012 (IPS) – Every day at least five women are brought to the gynaecological ward of Uganda’s Mulago National Referral Hospital in Kampala for treatment for complications caused by crude attempts to terminate their pregnancies.
According to Dr. Charles Kiggundu, the head of the hospital’s gynaecological department, some of the women who come here drink gasoline or take untested combinations of herbs and drugs to induce an abortion. Others insert sticks into their vaginas.
The women at the …
BANGKOK, Dec 29 2012 (IPS) – Days before leaders of the European Union (EU) arrived in Norway to collect this year’s Nobel Peace prize, Thai public health activists sent a letter to the northern powerhouse, warning that the EU’s 2012 accolades face a credibility test in this Southeast Asian country.
They had in mind the fate of Thailand’s generic drugs supply-line when Bangkok and the EU begin talks in early 2013 for a free trade agreement (FTA). The letter to Joao Aguiar Machado, deputy director general for trade at the European Commission, called for the bloc to respect global trade rules’ .
The EU’s of pressuring various developing countries around the world to in free trade negotiations – which seek to remove all barriers to EU firms wishing to do busin…