Laughter helps children heal. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

HAVANA, Apr 3 2013 (IPS) – Three-year-old Yanaghy García has been in the William Soler Children s Hospital, in the Cuban capital, for a month. He suffers from epilepsy, but he forgets about it all for a while and smiles at the antics of Mantequilla, a clown.

He is doing well and getting better. When I see him smiling like that, it s as if he were playing with his friends again, the boy s grandmother told IPS. Vicenta Echevarría knows how much happiness visits by the clown, who works as a volunteer, bring to the children.

Mantequilla is actress Reyna de la Paz, who has been delighting patients and …

WASHINGTON, May 22 2013 (IPS) – U.S. officials Tuesday formally unveiled the government’s first comprehensive strategy aimed at integrating water into all U.S. development funding and programmes, a step long urged by advocates and development experts.

Piped water has made life easier for this Laotian boy, who no longer has to help his parents fetch water from afar. Credit:Vannaphone Sitthirath/IPS

Civil society groups are expressing excitement over the scope and strength of the new strategy, dubbing it a “major advance”…

UNITED NATIONS, Jun 11 2013 (IPS) – Author Malcolm Gladwell draws on the science of epidemiology in his book The Tipping Point to explain how ideas spread through a population, in the same way as an infectious disease can proceed from a few cases to a full-blown pandemic.

Dr. David Nabarro. Credit: UN Photo/Joao Araujo Pinto

In previous years I have worked on HIV and influenza pandemics: I have seen how rapidly contagion can spread. Recently, I have asked myself whether the world is near the tipping point for ending hunger. Has the momentum reached a critical mass? Is it reasonable to contemplate a world free of malnutritio…

FGM is a taboo and complicated topic in Liberia and it is dangerous for women to speak out about it. Credit: Travis Lupick/IPS

UNITED NATIONS, Jul 22 2013 (IPS) – The United Nations children’s agency UNICEF released a report Monday that gives the most complete picture of female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) ever published.

Over 125 million women and girls have undergone the practice, and there are 30 million women and girls at risk of the procedure in the next decade. The is a culmination of 20 years of research from 29 countries across Africa and Asia, using national surveys. began to look closely at FGM/C 10 years ago.

Egypt is the highest-ranking coun…

IPS U.N. Bureau Chief Thalif Deen interviews UNFPA Senior Advisor DR. AZZA KARAM

Azza Karam, Senior Advisor on Culture at the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). UN Photo/Paulo Filgueiras

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 20 2013 (IPS) – The United Nations is considered one of the world s most secular institutions, with 193 member states representing peoples of different faiths and cultures and professing religious and agnostic beliefs.

Still, faith-based organisations (FBOs) continue to play a vital role in a wide range of issues on the U.N. s political, social and economic agenda, including human rights, population, food, health, education, children, peacekeeping, di…

Kayla Moore, in photo with her infant niece, suffered a mental health crisis and died in police custody. She is remembered in a community birthday celebration by her sister, Maria Moore. Credit: Doug Oakley/IPS

BERKELEY, California, U.S., Nov 26 2013 (IPS) – Just before midnight on Feb. 12, Kayla Xavier Moore’s roommate dialed 911. Moore, 41, a paranoid schizophrenic, was off her prescription meds and highly agitated. The roommate thought he knew the drill – Moore would be taken to a psychiatric hospital, stabilised with medication and allowed to go home in 72 hours.

That’s not what happened. Finding Moore had an outstanding warrant, Berkeley police decided to ta…

Lindiwe Dlamini nurses her six-week-old baby boy. Credit: Mantoe Phakathi/IPS

MBABANE, Jan 7 2014 (IPS) – Smiling as she breastfeeds her six-week-old baby boy, Lindiwe Dlamini, 38, is optimistic about his future.

Dlamini, who is HIV-positive, is determined that her baby will not be infected. The mother of three – who conceived her first two children when she was HIV-negative – was on antiretroviral therapy (ART) when she delivered a healthy boy in November.

Now she is feeding him on breast milk and nothing else for six months – advice she received during antenatal care. She knows mother’s milk is more nutritious and carries antibodies.

“Bre…

Martin Khor, executive director of the South Centre, warns that negotiations on the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement are a matter of life and death.

GENEVA, Mar 9 2014 (IPS) – If you or some family members or friends suffer from cancer, hepatitis, AIDS, asthma or other serious ailments, it’s worth your while to follow the negotiations on the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement and other similar bilateral trade agreements.

It’s really a matter of life and death. For the TPPA can cut off the potential supply of cheaper generic medicines that can save lives, especially when the original branded products are priced so sky-high that very few can afford them.

Recently, a cancer specialist in New Zealand (one of the TPPA counties) warned that the TPPA would prolon…

People displaced by militancy and the military operation wait to get registered in Jalozai refugee camp near Peshawar. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan, May 2 2014 (IPS) – Every night in his sleep, Rizwan Ahmed sees his sons being killed. “When he wakes up, he starts crying. He realises they are dead and it was the nightmare he has been having,” says Dr. Mian Iftikhar Hussain, the psychiatrist treating him.

Ahmed, 51, used to be a school employee in Bara Khyber Agency in Pakistan’s militancy-hit Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) before tragedy struck almost a year ago. “He lost his two sons in the violence back home. His grief moun…

From Jun. 30 to Jul. 1, 800 health experts, officials and activists will gather in Johannesburg, South Africa, at the third Partners’ Forum around the Action Plan for Women’s and Children’s Health

According to an African proverb, “every woman who gives birth has one foot on her grave.” It is time to make this proverb a historical fact and not a present reality. Credit: Mercedes Sayagues/IPS

NAIROBI, Jun 27 2014 (IPS) – An African proverb says that every woman who gives birth has one foot on her grave.

Sadly, this is still true today, especially within the context of the AIDS epidemic.

In spite of the huge advances in the prevention of mother…