Interview with Dr. Seth Berkley, International AIDS Vaccine Initiative
NEW YORK, Nov 27 2007 (IPS) – When one of the world #39s most promising large-scale HIV vaccine trials was shut down in September after it became clear that not only did the drug fail to block the virus, but may have even increased the vulnerability of some test volunteers to contracting HIV, it was a profoundly disappointing moment in the more than 20-year quest for a vaccine.
Dr. Seth Berkley Credit: IAVI
The International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI), headquartered in New York, is an important player in conducting and promoting va…
Arsène Séverin
BRAZZAVILLE, Jan 8 2008 (IPS) – At the Integrated Health Centre of Bissita, located in the Bacongo area of Brazzaville, the capital of the Republic of Congo, pregnant women seated on a long bench wait to have prenatal examinations.
A member of this talkative group, Sylvie Bakani*, wears a concerned expression. Due to deliver in a few weeks, she is also HIV positive.
The doctor wanted her to take the test when she arrived for the first time at the centre, three months pregnant. When the test was positive, her husband threw her out, accusing her of being a prostitute. With time, she regained her courage, and (now) comes daily to be weighed, Eugénie Mbondji, Sylvie s mother, explained to IPS.
This situation encapsulates the problems facing thos…
Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 12 2008 (IPS) – After nearly 30 years of intense campaigning against female genital mutilation (FGM), the United Nations says that several countries, including Canada, Belgium, Spain and Italy, have passed legislation criminalising the practice, prevalent mostly among immigrant communities.
There is a greater understanding of the practice as a violation of human rights, as well as its harmful health impacts, says a new U.N. report to be discussed at the upcoming two-week session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), scheduled to take place Feb. 25 through Mar. 7.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has estimated between 100 and 140 million girls and women have undergone some form of FGM in more than 28 countries, mostly in Af…
Dahr Jamail and Ahmed Ali*
BAQUBA, Mar 10 2008 (IPS) – Iraq #39s children have been more gravely affected by the U.S. occupation than any other segment of the population.
The United Nations estimated that half a million Iraqi children died during more than 12 years of economic sanctions that preceded the U.S. invasion of March 2003, primarily as a result of malnutrition and disease.
But childhood malnutrition in Iraq has increased 9 percent since then, according to an Oxfam International report released last July.
A report from the non-governmental relief organisation Save the Children shows Iraq continues to have the highest mortality for children under five. Since the first Gulf War, this has increased 150 percent. It is estimated that one in eight children …
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…
Nitin Jugran
TONK, Rajasthan, Jun 3 2008 (IPS) – Children should be seen, not heard an adage that remains in practice in most parts of rural India even today where the orthodox patriarchal traditions continue to hold sway in tightly-knit local communities.
Child reporter Suman (extreme right) discussing development issues with villagers. Credit: Nitin Jugran/IPS
It is nothing short of revolutionary then that children in some villages of Rajasthan, the largest s…
Tarjei Kidd Olsen
OSLO, Jul 2 2008 (IPS) – Environmental damage, diseases or workers rights abuses are common at fish farms in Chile and Canada operated by the world s largest salmon company, according to activists.
Fish lice-infected salmon at a Canadian salmon farm. Credit: Pure Salmon Campaign
A group of Chilean and Canadian scientists and activists visited Oslo to press home the accusations at the company s annual general meeting last month.
The Norwegian-run company, Marine Harvest, denies many of the…
Kalinga Seneviratne
MANILA, Aug 1 2008 (IPS) – A growing and heated debate in this predominantly Catholic country revolves around the church s uncompromising stance against the use of contraceptive devices that is said to be contributing to poverty and affecting the quality of life for many Filipinos.
A group of 15 bishops led some 12,000 protestors at a rally here on Jul. 25 against a proposed House of Representatives bill aimed at devising a national reproductive health policy.
Pulling the other way opinion pieces in the national press have been critical of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo s pro-Catholic church stand on population issues. They urged her to make a bold anti-poverty statement in the State of the Nation Address (SONA) that was delivered on Monday.
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Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 18 2008 (IPS) – The Global Sanitation Fund (GSF), created last March with a 100-million-dollar target per year, is being billed as a key financing mechanism aimed at meeting one of the eight U.N. Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
Boys use new latrines at Tulung Elementary School in Pundong Village in the…
Michael J. Carter
SEATTLE, Washington, Nov 13 2008 (IPS) – Working for sustainable development in Kenya, which ranks 148th out of 177 countries on the United Nations development index, is a daunting task. The country not only has a 6.1 percent rate of HIV/AIDS infection among its 37 million people, but nearly 60 percent of Kenyans live on less than two dollars a day.
Children gather in front of the newly painted and expanded Rabuor Nursery Schoo…