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…

Women disabled in Taliban attacks on a campaign in Peshawar to seek rights for themselves and action against the Taliban. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS.

PESHAWAR, Mar 18 2013 (IPS) – People disabled through bomb and suicide attacks by the Taliban in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and the nearby Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province are seeking support for themselves, and demanding strict action against the Taliban.

“There’s an urgent need of a campaign against Taliban militants to stem the tide of militancy and safeguard people,” Muhammad Imran, a resident of Bajuar Agency within the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) told IPS. Imran, 34, was a successful fa…

A child at a lead-contaminated site. Credit: Blacksmith Institute

UXBRIDGE, Canada, May 9 2013 (IPS) – Toxic waste sites in 31 countries are damaging the brains of nearly 800,000 children and impairing the health of millions of people in the developing world, two new studies have found.

Toxins and pollutants in the environment are major sources of illness and reduced lifespans globally. The impacts on health in some countries are on par with malaria, said Kevin Chatham-Stephens, a pediatric environmental health fellow at the at Mount Sinai.”We have found lots of nasty sites out there but we don’t have the money to clean them up.” — Bret Ericson of the Bla…

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…

An open drainage ditch in Ankorondrano-Andranomahery, one of the poorest neighbourhoods in Madagascar’s capital city. Credit: Lova Rabary-Rakontondravony/IPS

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 21 2013 (IPS) – Even as the United Nations laments the fact that more than 2.5 billion people in the developing world are still without adequate sanitation, both Japan and South Korea have gone upscale: offering automated toilets and piped-in classical music.

Although at a hackers conference in Las Vegas last month, high-tech experts confessed that virtually all computerised devices, including toilets, are vulnerable to hacking.

The Wall Street Journal quoted a 27-year-old U.S.-…

Wounded veterans attend a May 22, 2013 Memorial Day ceremony at which they are given Segway personal transporters to improve their mobility and independence. Credit: Senator Claire McCaskill/cc by 2.0

WASHINGTON, Nov 4 2013 (IPS) – In his final letter to his family, 30-year-old Iraq war veteran Daniel Somers wrote of having never returned from war. “In truth, I was nothing more than a prop,” reads the suicide note dated Jun. 10, 2013, six years after his final deployment. “In truth, I have already been absent for a long, long time.”

As the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan draws to a close, Washington will tout the absence of combat troops in that country. Loo…

KOLKATA, Dec 13 2013 (IPS) – Human rights have taken a step back in India, activists say after the Supreme Court overturned a ruling of the High Court that had earlier lifted the ban on gay sex.

The Delhi High Court ruling had in effect suspended application of Article 377 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). The article, which criminalises homosexuality, was introduced in India in 1860 under British colonial rule, echoing conservative Victorian values of the age. The 19th century law indicts homosexuality as going against the law of nature by indulging in “unnatural acts”.

The Delhi High Court ruling was in response to a petition filed in 2001 by the , an NGO in Delhi, that challenged the constitutional validity of the article on the grounds that it criminalises homosexu…

Residents of Clara Town, a low-income neighbourhood of Monrovia, Liberia, face sanitation challenges with the onset of the rainy season. Credit: Travis Lupick/IPS

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 19 2014 (IPS) – When the U.N. s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) reach their deadline in 2015, there will still be a critical setback: millions of people in the developing world without full access to safe drinking water, proper sanitation and electricity in their homes.

Conscious of this shortcoming, the 193-member General Assembly hosted a two-day high-level meeting, which concluded Wednesday, to address three thematic issues: water, sanitation and sustainable energy, spe…

This is the second in a three-part series of about women and Option B+ in Africa

A Swazi mother with her baby. In July Swaziland will roll out Option B+, the latest treatment recommended by the World Health Organisation for HIV positive mothers. Credit: Mantoe Phakathi/IPS

MBABANE, Jun 5 2014 (IPS) – For months, Nonkululeko Msibi could not find her voice each time she wanted to share the news to her husband. She had learned that she was infected with HIV at the age of 16 when delivering her firstborn baby at Swaziland s Mbabane Government Hospital.

“Although I was shocked by the news, I accepted it,” Msibi told IPS. “But the most difficult pa…