Ranjit Devraj

NEW DELHI, Apr 21 2011 (IPS) – Will India, the world s biggest manufacturer of the pesticide endosulfan, and also the biggest victim of the toxic pesticide, persist with opposing its ban globally?
A coalition of health and environmental activists fears that the central government is preparing to oppose a ban at the Apr. 25 -29 fifth conference of the parties (CoP) to the Stockholm Convention on persistent organic pollutants, or POPs Treaty , in Geneva.

We understand that the central government will continue to support endosulfan use, although India risks being isolated in Geneva, said Ravi Agarwal, director of Toxics Link, a participating member of the International POPs Elimination Network.

At the last review committee of the POPs Treaty in Oct…

Charles Mpaka

BLANTYRE, May 25 2011 (IPS) – In the shade of a leafy mango tree at the rural Chipho Health Centre in Thyolo, southern Malawi, Melifa Faison sits looking frequently down the road hoping to see an ambulance. Lying beside her is her 6-year-old daughter, weak with malaria.
The medical assistant has referred the child to a larger health centre 22 kilometres (km) away for proper treatment.

He (the medical assistant) says she will need to be put on a drip and they don t have the supplies, says Faison.

The centre does not have the first line drugs for malaria, the top killer of children in Malawi. This is Faison s second visit in 10 days. On the first visit her daughter was given painkillers.

I was informed there was no medicine (for malaria) …

Pam Johnson

WASHINGTON, Jun 17 2011 (IPS) – By 2015, women demanding family planning products and services in the developing world will likely reach 933 million, a terrific increase from the current 818 million women demanding access to these basic reproductive commodities.
In addition, according to the Reproductive Health Supplies Coalition (RHSC), the number of family planning users will soar from 603 million to 709 million an increase of 64 million users across 66 developing countries, and 42 million spanning 89 middle-income countries by the middle of the decade.

The increased cost associated with this skyrocketing demand is an estimated 5.7 billion dollars per annum for both low- and middle-income countries including the expenses of procuring more contraceptive c…

Inaki Borda

UNITED NATIONS, Jul 7 2011 (IPS) – This year, tobacco use will kill nearly six million people. Of that number, 600,000 will die because of exposure to second- hand tobacco smoke.
If current trends continue, the annual death toll could rise to eight million by 2030, according to a by the World Health Organization (WHO), with more than 80 percent of the deaths occurring in low- and middle-income countries

We have the means to prevent this needless tragedy. Political will is the key, Timothy O Leary, WHO communications officer, told IPS.

On Thursday, the WHO launched its third periodic report on the effects of tobacco, with a focus on the proliferation of smoking bans in work places, restaurants, bars and other indoor public places. It notes while t…

CAPE TOWN, South Africa, Aug 9 2011 (IPS) – Only six sub-Saharan African countries have failed to reduce the number of women dying in childbirth over the last two decades. High-spending South Africa is among them, with maternal mortality rates more than quadrupling since 1990. Human Rights Watch researcher Agnes Odhiambo says this is largely due to a lack of accountability.
Maternal mortality rates in sub-Saharan Africa as a whole have been reduced by a quarter compared to 1990 levels. But the continent s most developed economy is moving in the opposite direction: South Africa s maternal mortality rate in 1990 was 150 per 100,000 live births; in its 2010 MDG progress report, the country reported this had risen to 625 per 100,000.

HIV is a big factor in maternal mortality i…

Kanya D’Almeida

WASHINGTON, Sep 14 2011 (IPS) – Kakenya Ntaiya was engaged at age five and would have been married by 13 if her mother had not insisted that she attend her small village school in Enoosaen, Kenya.
As she got older, Ntaiya made a bargain with her father that she would be circumcised only if he allowed her to finish high school, then negotiated with her village elders to be granted permission to travel to the United States for university.

It was in college that I learned for the first time that genital mutilation and cutting were illegal, that I had rights, that I had always had rights and there were people out there ready to defend them, Ntaiya told a group of human rights advocates in Washington D.C. Tuesday.

Ntaiya went on to found the Kakeny…

RIO DE JANEIRO, Nov 4 2011 (IPS) – News that the government of South Africa was inspired by Brazil s health system in setting up its own universal coverage scheme might meet with scepticism in this South American country.

Pediatrics waiting room at the Albert Schweitzer hospital in Rio de Janeiro. Credit: Agência Brasil Marcello Casal Jr/EBr

Sociologist Walkiria Dutra de Oliveira was one of the many Brazilians who had a negati…

Clarissa Sebag-Montefiore

BEIJING, Dec 19 2011 (IPS) – In a country which houses 21 of the world’s 100 most polluted cities, outcry over official underplaying of pollution is escalating as residents refuse to take government readings of the problem at face value.
Beijing environmental authorities claim that the capital had already reached its annual ‘blue sky days’ target for 2011, stating that the air quality this year was better than the Olympic year of 2008.

The latest claims have been met with derision online, amid fears among the population that the government is covering up pollution.

On Sunday the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported that Beijing has enjoyed 274 days of ‘blue sky’ in 2011.

Beijing has seen an overall decline in the c…

SRINAGAR, India, Feb 14 2012 (IPS) – Drug abuse, known to be widespread among youth in India s northern Kashmir state, is now showing a new trend whereby teenage girls and women are increasingly turning into substance abusers and addicts.

At the police de-addiction centre in Srinagar. Credit: Sana Altaf/IPS

That young women and college-going girls are abusing substances, especially toluene, a common thinner, is testified to by officials at the de-addiction centre run by the police control room in Srinagar.

Toluene abuse or glue…

Bari Bates

BRUSSELS, Mar 19 2012 (IPS) – Decades ago, 15 of Europe s wealthiest nations made a promise to allocate .7 percent of their respective gross national products (GNP) to official development assistance. Yet despite a commitment that comprises such a small fraction of a nation s wealth, only a handful of countries are on track to reach this goal by the 2015 deadline.
Among the few leaders who have prioritised this target is Denmark s Prime Minister Helle Thorning- Schmidt, who was recently celebrated by the confederation of European non-governmental organisations known as CONCORD, together with the ONE Campaign, for Denmark s aid commitment to help the world s poorest.

Volunteers and activists donned masks of the Danish Prime Minister s face on Mar. 16, under …