Kwamboka Oyaro
NAIROBI, Apr 10 2008 (IPS) – For many of Africa s women, getting access to family planning services is difficult at the best of times. When war intervenes they can find themselves without any services at all, even as they become more vulnerable to sexual violence the situation in northern Uganda being a case in point.
A long-running conflict in this region has pitted the Lord s Resistance Army (LRA) against government forces. The rebels, led by Joseph Kony, claim to be fighting for a government based on the Biblical Ten Commandments, but have become notorious for rights abuses that include the use of children as soldiers, sex slaves and porters.
While an initial ceasefire in the 20-year war was reached in 2006, a final peace agreement remains elusive. K…
Dalia Acosta
HAVANA, May 21 2008 (IPS) – Nearly 50 years after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, sexual minorities are at last beginning to feel that their voice is being heard and that they can finally take their place in the movement towards a more just and inclusive society.
I always wanted to be a part of all this. I can t remember how many times I told my mother: I m going to make it work; I m going to make the revolution, Mónica, a young Cuban woman who held a symbolic wedding with her partner Elizabeth in December, in the inner courtyard of the governmental National Centre for Sex Education (CENESEX), told IPS.
Meanwhile, Danilo Rivero, who travelled 100 kilometres to attend the celebration in Havana of the International Day against Homophobia and Transpho…
Kathryn Strachan
JOHANNESBURG, Jun 18 2008 (IPS) – The wind has picked up and blows the sand, swirling in patterns, across the dirt roads and barren yards of Madadeni township. It batters relentlessly against the walls of Joseph Gumede s* iron shack, rattling the windows, and he has to raise his voice to be heard above the din. But sheltered from the dust storm. Joseph feels that he has at last found his way home.
Joseph was one of the first patients to be sent home under South Africa s fledgling programme to move long-term psychiatric patients out of hospital and into the community. Madadeni Hospital, which lies in the bleak flat expanse outside the industrial town of Newcastle in the province of KwaZulu-Natal, was chosen as one of two pilot sites to test the policy of deins…
Miriam Mannak
CAPE TOWN, Aug 27 2008 (IPS) – Geographic Information Systems (GIS) could play a vital role in improving agriculture and boosting food security in Africa. However, only a few African countries are capable of developing such systems, partly because of a lack of basic geographical data.
This arose during the third Map Africa conference, which took place in the South African city of Cape Town from August 25 to 26.
The conference revolved around geographical information technology systems, which are computer applications that capture, store, analyse, manage, present, monitor and visualise spatial information that is linked to a geographical location.
A GIS is therefore often associated with an interactive map, which combines tabular data, such as fig…
Wolfgang Kerler
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 24 2008 (IPS) – Although a safe and effective vaccine has been available for eight years now, 1.6 million people still die from pneumococcal diseases every year, making it the number one vaccine-preventable cause of death worldwide. More than half of the victims are children.
Ali Gharib
WASHINGTON, Dec 18 2008 (IPS) – With talks between Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and his opposition yielding few resolutions to the political deadlock, some observers are calling for outside-the-box thinking beyond the parametres laid out in negotiations.
A power-sharing deal in Zimbabwe is unlikely and bound to fail, said a new report released this week on the Southern African nation s continuing political uncertainty and growing humanitarian crisis.
The report from the International Crisis Group (ICG), an organisation dedicated to preventing and resolving deadly conflicts, called for an abandonment of the Global Political Agreement (GPA) signed by the opposing parties on Sep. 11, which has not yet restored political order.
No new power-shari…
Daniela Estrada* – Tierramérica
SANTIAGO, Mar 20 2009 (IPS) – Olivia González has been a schoolteacher for 30 years in Cerro Navia, one of the districts in the Chilean capital with the highest concentration of air pollution between April and August. A first-hand witness to its effects on health, she is pessimistic about the air she ll breathe this coming southern hemisphere winter.
The dangerous haze that envelopes Santiago. Credit: Photo Stock
Every year, the students in the municipal school where I work come down with …
Marcela Valente* – Tierramérica
BUENOS AIRES, Apr 21 2009 (IPS) – The population s susceptibility to suffering more severe forms of dengue is worrying health experts, as the epidemic in South America expands in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil and Paraguay.
The Aedes aegypti mosquito feeding on human blood. Credit: Public domain
Dengue is a viral illness that manifests itself in different ways for each person, and can be much more severe for some than others, depending on risk factors. The biggest danger, say expe…
Gustavo Capdevila
GENEVA, May 18 2009 (IPS) – World Health Organisation (WHO) Director General Margaret Chan issued a warning about the danger posed by the H1N1 flu epidemic, while health ministers from several countries recommended avoiding excesses when it came to remarks about a potential pandemic.
This virus may have given us a grace period, but we do not know how long this grace period will last. No one can say whether this is just the calm before the storm, Chang told health ministers and other representatives of the WHO s 193 member states at the inauguration of the 62nd session of the World Health Assembly in Geneva.
Chang s tone contrasted with the position taken by the ministers of Brazil, the United Kingdom and Japan, who called for maintaining the current…
CAIRO, Jul 20 2009 (IPS) – Karim borrowed money to expand his bakery. When the money ran out, and facing the prospect of imprisonment if unable to repay his debts, the 36-year- old Egyptian baker sold his kidney.
His case, among hundreds documented by the Coalition for Organ-Failure Solutions (COFS), a Washington-based NGO working to end organ trafficking, reveals an alarming trend: poverty is driving Egyptians to sell their organs.
Experts say the absence of legislation regulating human organ transplants has made Egypt an international hotspot for kidney trafficking. Up to 95 percent of the 3,000 legal kidney transplants per year, and hundreds of illegal ones, involve a commercial transaction.
A nationwide ban on organ transplants from cadavers means all kidneys mu…