Kristin Palitza

CAPE TOWN, Oct 27 2009 (IPS) – The South African government is in the process of drafting regulations to police genetically modified organisms (GMO) as part of the national Consumer Protection Act, but environmental experts are worried the GMO section of the new Act, which was signed into law last April, will not be put into practice.
Even if we are having good laws, we are not sure who will implement and monitor them, cautioned Charmaine Treherne, director of the South African Freeze Alliance on Genetic Engineering (SAFeAGE).

She spoke to IPS during a panel discussion between parliamentarians and anti-GMO lobbyists on the implications of GM crops on sustainable livelihoods and food sovereignty at the Centre for the Book in Cape Town.

For exa…

VIENTIANE, Nov 20 2009 (IPS) – Before 2002, Chanhpheng Sivila held training workshops for the many Lao disabled women and men at her own house.

Chanhpheng Sivila who walks with the help of a caliper believes education for women is the key . Credit: Melody Kemp/IPS

Now she presides over the sprawling Lao Disabled Women s Development Centre fronting the Mekong, 20 km from Vientiane. Traffic thunders over the nearby Friendship Bridge on its…

MUSOMA, Tanzania, Dec 12 2009 (IPS) – In the darkest corner of the room, under the clamour of twelve women’s voices, sits Ghati Chacha*, she can barely be heard. Her newborn suckles as she speaks softly about how she refused female circumcision.

Chacha was forced to marry an 80-year-old man after she refused to be circumcised. Credit: Jessie Boylan/IPS

I refused because (the previous) President Mkapa had banned circumcision in Tanzania, she…

KABUL, Jan 28 2010 (IPS) – Afghanistan may be one of the poorest countries in the world, but official figures do not quite paint a picture of a country deep in the throes of poverty and underdevelopment.
Fardin Sediqi, chief of the Methodology and Supervision Department of the Ministry of Economy, says in the last two years poverty has declined from 42 percent to 36 percent.

From 2004 to 2009, says Aziz Shams, spokesperson of the Ministry of Finance, the average income of Afghan workers has grown six-fold from 70 U.S. dollars a year to 426 dollars.

Shams adds that between 2003 and 2009 Afghanistan s annual revenue went up from 207 million dollars to 803 million dollars, and is expected to reach one billion dollars this year.

Add to this what the internation…

Danilo Valladares

GUATEMALA CITY, Mar 3 2010 (IPS) – Guatemala knows that when it comes time to demonstrate compliance with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a set of global anti-poverty and development target to be met by 2015, it will make a poor showing.
Along with the rest of the world s governments, authorities in this impoverished Central American nation committed themselves at the United Nations Millennium Summit in 2000 to halve the proportion of people living in extreme poverty by 2015, from 1990 levels.

In 1989, 20 percent of the Guatemalan population was living in extreme poverty. At the start of this century, the MDG poverty goal appeared to be within reach, because by 2000 absolute poverty had been reduced to 16 percent of the population, which cur…

Lloyd Himaambo

LUSAKA, Apr 10 2010 (IPS) – As the heavy rains subside, signifying the end of the rainy season, a cholera outbreak is sweeping through the Zambian capital, Lusaka.

Flooding in Lusaka in 2009: despite investment in improved drainage, this year s floods were the worst in several decades. Credit: Nebert Mulenga/IPS

Humanitarian organisation Médecins Sans Fronti…

Stephanie Nieuwoudt

CAPE TOWN, May 11 2010 (IPS) – South Africa is experiencing a shortage of over 80 different drugs in its public health sector, including flu vaccinations and medication for tuberculosis and high blood pressure. The severity of shortages varies from province to province and hospital to hospital, depending on the leadership and skills levels of management.
Experts blame the shortage on a number of factors, including a lack of trained pharmacists, an ineffective tendering process and the inability of some pharmaceutical companies to deliver drugs.

The distribution and consumption of medicine forms a chain with many links. Each link has to function optimally for a patient to eventually get her medication, says Dr Elma de Vries, a former chairperson of…

Daniela Estrada

SANTIAGO, Jun 23 2010 (IPS) – The majority of people surveyed in Brazil, Chile, Mexico and Nicaragua are in favour of legalising therapeutic abortion, but not all forms of elective abortion, according to a study by the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO).
There is a shared opinion in the four countries that abortion is a serious problem, of public health and equality, study coordinator Claudia Dides, director of the FLACSO-Chile gender and equality programme, told IPS.

Most of the survey respondents believe that the existing strict abortion laws need to be revised, particularly for cases in which the health of the mother is at risk, and that changes in the law should be made through referendums, before congressional debate.

Neve…

Genevieve Marie Ilg

UNITED NATIONS, Jul 16 2010 (IPS) – The Nigerian government is trying to cope with an outbreak of lead poisoning which has killed over 200 people in Zamfara State since early July.
According to NGO News Africa, medical personnel supervising the treatment of victims confirmed that most of those who died were children aged five years and younger.

Doctor Alhassan Hamisu Dama, told Good Health Weekly, I cannot say precisely, but more than 200 children died and that is why we are concentrating on treating victims of that age group.

He also urged for financial and technical assistance. The World Health Organisation (WHO) is working with its U.N. partners to mobilise funds to deal with this unprecedented environmental emergency, Dama said.

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Marwaan Macan-Markar

BANGKOK, Aug 10 2010 (IPS) – Tobacco multinational Philip Morris may have had good reason to send out victory smoke signals when Filipinos elected Benigno Aquino III to be president in May. After all, he is a regular smoker who has said he will not quit the habit.
But the strong tobacco industry lobby in one of the region s most lucrative cigarette markets received a sharp reminder in August that Aquino s penchant for a puff when under stress will not come in the way of the Philippines joining the global trend to discourage the smoking habit.

Newly appointed Health Secretary Enrique Ona assured local anti-tobacco groups that the health department would be pushing for higher tobacco taxes, raising hopes for a tougher policy in a country of 94 milli…