Michael Deibert
KINSHASA, Apr 24 2008 (IPS) – The rain falls in battering sheets, rolling eastward along the Congo River through Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). It is midday, but the sky turns black and soon the potholed streets of this decrepit yet vibrant metropolis are filled with pond-sized puddles, many of them larger than the cars that traverse them.
The DRC's Congo River – one of many water sources in the Ce…
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…
Families and health workers defy the Taliban’s ban on oral polio vaccines (OPV). Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS
PESHAWAR, Pakistan , Jul 11 2013 (IPS) – Four-year-old Muhammad Jihad is handicapped, and his parents know who to blame: the Taliban.
Jihad’s father, Muhammad Rishad, says the boy tested positive for polio on May 6 at the National Institute of Health in Islamabad.
The family had travelled from their home in North Waziristan, a mountainous region that comprises part of Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), to ensure their son had the best possible care, only to be told that the virus had spread too far, and little Muhammad would likel…
Table tennis players train at Majd Sports. Majd Sports is a recreational centre catering for people with disabilities in Ramallah, occupied West Bank. Credit: Silvia Boarini/IPS
RAMALLAH, Occupied West Bank, Apr 28 2016 (IPS) – Despite formally adopting progressive laws, such as Law Number 4, and ratifying the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disability, Palestinian authorities still struggle to get beyond rhetoric when it comes to supporting the 7 to 11 per cent of the population that is affected by disability.
As the ongoing Israeli military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza continues to block the development of the quasi-Palestinian state, the a…
Credit: WHO
BANGKOK, Thailand, Jun 9 2023 (IPS) – The second session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on plastic pollution (INC-2), held in Paris, France, from May 29 to June 02, 2023, concluded with optimism and the prospect of ending plastics pollution. Over 700 delegates from 169 Member States agreed to prepare a ahead of the third session in November this year.
Among the more important and interesting debates, health advocates attending the negotiations that it was essential to discuss how to categorize the thousands of types of plastics, chemical precursors and products in a way that allows for a coherent approach to ending plastic pollution.
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