health

• ‘Starseed’ เรื่องธงน้องใหม่จาก Com2uS เปิดให้ลงทะเบียนล่วงหน้าบน Google Play Store, Apple App Store และเว็บไซต์ทางการ พร้อมกิจกรรมลงทะเบียนล่วงหน้ามากมาย
• Starseed: Asnia Trigger พุ่งขึ้นสู่อันดับสูงสุดของชาร์ตเกมยอดนิยมของ Google Play Store ในวันแรกของการเปิดตัวในเกาหลี ด้วยความงดงามของตัวละคร ระบบที่หลากหลา�…
  

Stephen Leahy

BROOKLIN, Canada, Feb 20 2007 (IPS) – Factory farms are responsible for both the bird flu and emissions of greenhouse gases that now top those of cars and sport utility vehicles (SUVs), according to a report released Monday.
Sixty percent of global livestock production, including chicken and pig confined animal feedlot operations (CAFOs), now occur in the developing world. Unregulated zoning and subsidies that encourage these CAFOs or factory farms are moving closer to major urban areas in China, Bangladesh, India, and many countries in Africa, said the report, Vital Signs 2007-2008 by the Worldwatch Institute.

Although there is no definitive scientific proof, those farms are very likely where avian or bird flu started and will continue to be responsible…

Mithre J. Sandrasagra

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 29 2007 (IPS) – A new treaty designed to promote and protect the rights of the world s 650 million persons with disabilities opens for signature at the United Nations on Friday.
At its core, the Convention of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities ensures that persons with disabilities enjoy the same human rights as everyone else, and are able to lead their lives as fully-fledged citizens who can make valuable contributions to society.

Once the convention is ratified, We will no longer be objects of charity and pity, Thomas Schindlmayr, a U.N. disability expert, told reporters here Thursday.

Just two days ago, because of my impairment, I would have had severe limitations here there was no ramp to the podium, Schindlm…

Emad Mekay

WASHINGTON, May 4 2007 (IPS) – Indigenous communities in the Peruvian Amazon are warning the U.S. oil giant Occidental Petroleum (Oxy) that it could soon face a lawsuit in the United States if it fails to clean up toxic waste in their tropical rainforest.
A new report charges that Oxy #39s operations for three decades on the border between Peru and Ecuador have caused indigenous Achuar children to suffer from high concentrations of lead and cadmium in their blood, believed to cause serious developmental problems.

Previous studies by the Peruvian government have made similar findings.

We have told Oxy this week that they must talk with us in good faith about how they are going to clean up the toxic waste they left in our rainforest, said spiritual e…

Kester Kenn Klomegah

MOSCOW, Jun 8 2007 (IPS) – The industrialised nations of the Group of Eight are failing on the promises made in their previous summits to help Africa s economic development and to push for poverty alleviation for those struggling to survive on less than a dollar per day, say World Bank experts and development activists.
It s obvious to the whole world that G8 member countries are not fully delivering on their promises to Africa and nobody holds them accountable for those lapses, Eric Kilongi Mgendi, regional spokesperson for the development campaign group ActionAid, told IPS in an interview from Nairobi, Kenya.

African countries badly need technology and investment capital to help them adapt to all kinds of environmental hazards, including the c…

Emad Mekay

WASHINGTON, Jul 6 2007 (IPS) – Despite strong verbal commitments to reproductive and sexual health, the so-called multilateral development banks (MDBs) that lend to poor nations have spent relatively little money on such projects and, in some cases, have followed policies on the ground that in fact impeded women s empowerment and improved public health, a new study charges.
The study by Gender Action, a Washington-based group that monitors the banks policies towards women and gender equality, examines both the quantity and quality of funding for reproductive health during a four-year period from 2003 to 2006 by MDBs that include the World Bank, African Development Bank, Asian Development Bank and Inter-American Development Bank, as well as the restrictive fiscal an…

Praful Bidwai

NEW DELHI, Aug 9 2007 (IPS) – Cancer patients in India have reason to be relieved at a high court ruling this week which dismissed a petition by Swiss pharmaceuticals multinational corporation (MNC) Novartis challenging an Indian law which denies patents for minor or trivial improvements to known drugs.
At immediate stake is the cost of a leukaemia drug, imatinib mesylate. Novartis prices its brand of the medicine, Gleevec/Glivec, at Rs 120,000 (3,000 US dollars) per dose. Indian generic drug manufacturers sell it at Rs 8,000 (200 dollars).

India s average per capita annual income is equivalent to only a fifth of the price of a single dose of Gleevec/Glivec. Had Novartis been granted a patent on its version of the drug, tens of thousands of Indians would…

Apostolis Fotiadis

ATHENS, Sep 7 2007 (IPS) – The small black device that Panagiotis Vovos holds in his hands can measure the voltage produced by mobile phone network transmission antennas. It can detect voltages up to 7(Volt/metre).
This would be many times above the legally allowed limit in most European countries (between 0.2 and 6 V/m), China 6(V/m) or Russia 1(V/m); still it is much below the limit in Greece, which reaches up to 33(V/m). If the indicator is constantly on red it means that an antenna is installed in one of the buildings around, which also means that some people are probably bombarded with radiation for many hours per day, Vovos told IPS.

In many cases the appearance of an antenna is usually followed by complaints by inhabitants of headaches, diffi…