Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON, Nov 14 2005 (IPS) – In a breakthrough for environmental and human rights activists, a federal high court judge in Nigeria has ruled that gas flaring in the Niger Delta violates the rights to life, health and dignity of the region s residents and ordered the practice halted immediately.
The ruling by Justice C.V. Nwokorie came in a case brought by the minority Iwerekan community filed last summer and appears to apply to similar suits by seven other minority communities. They include the Ogoni ethnic group, which just last week marked the tenth anniversary of the notorious execution by the former military junta in Nigeria of writer Kenneth Saro-wiwa and eight other Ogoni environmental rights activists.
The judgment also follows the unprecedented 200…
Nhamoinesu Mseyamwa
WINDHOEK, Apr 6 2006 (IPS) – Everything revolves around money and without work there is no money, says 33-year-old Maria Xoagub*, a mother of three who earns her living as a prostitute. Sometimes we try stopping going to sell our bodies in the streets, but when poverty takes over we are back there.
Xoagub s story is one heard frequently from Namibia s sex workers. In a country where the unemployment rate hovers around 30 percent, prospects of getting a job outside prostitution are slim for sex workers, many of whom are illiterate. According to the 2005 Human Development Report , produced by the United Nations Development Programme, about 35 percent of the country s 1.8 million people live below the poverty line of one U.S. dollar a day.
There is a…
Lynette Corporal* – IPS/Newsmekong
BANGKOK, Apr 15 2007 (IPS) – Grade 7 student Sakulrathna Muadkum says she knows what avian influenza is. I saw posters of it and I will simply not eat chicken that died of the flu, the pupil at Watnuannoradit School, here in Thai capital, said nonchalantly.
Over in Ranong in southern Thailand, a shy Htet Htet said in his native Burmese: My teacher told us to wash our hands often so we don t get sick. I will also not eat chicken if I think it died of bird flu.
The 12-year-old student of Victoria Learning Centre in Ranong, a southern Thai province on the border with Burma, added that he has seen colourful posters about bird flu in his community.
Efforts like these to reach young people and inform them about how to prevent the …
(l – r) Josiah Kavuma, Simon Lubambo, Joshua Businge and Brian Gitta, otherwise known as team Code 8, have developed a mobile phone app to diagnose malaria. Courtesy: Microsoft.
KAMPALA , Aug 13 2013 (IPS) – In his 21 years Brian Gitta has had malaria too many times to count. And over the years, because of the numerous times he has had to have his blood drawn to test for the disease, he has developed a fear of needles. It is little wonder then that he and three of his fellow computer science students worked hard to develop a mobile phone app that detects malaria – without the use of needles.
“I was two or three years old when I first contracted it,�…
International Women’s Day, March 8 2020
The year 2020 began with a shock report, Mind the 100 Year Gap, from the World Economic Forum which projected that gender equity would take at least 100 years to realise. Women and girls play a crucial role in society. However, they bear the brunt of patriarchy, their needs often unmet by traditional humanitarian responses and their health and education needs not prioritised. In the run-up to International Women’s Day with its theme, “I am Generation Equality: Realising Women’s Rights” IPS is publishing a series of features, opinion and editorials from experts and affiliated journalists around the world on women.