Enrique Gili* – IPS/IFEJ
SAN DIEGO, California, Oct 4 2007 (IPS) – The scent of portobello mushrooms wafts through the air as two of the three co-owners of Roots prep for their morning customers.
A customer waits for her food at the organic Roots restaurant. Credit: Enrique Gili
Heather Weightman and Jaime Reed recently set up shop in the hippie neighbourhood of Ocean Beach, San Diego. The community serves as a test laboratory for progressive culture in California. And the latest concept to emerge is …
Marwaan Macan-Markar
BANGKOK, Oct 30 2007 (IPS) – As public health experts in South-east Asia come to grips with one of the worst outbreaks of dengue fever in years, they discern a disturbing pattern about the profile of patients who have died from the virus vectored by the aedes aegypti mosquito.
Aedes Aegypti mosquito in action Credit: Wikipedia
Indonesia, the region s largest country and one that had a particularly bad year, offers a stark reminder of what the medical community is grappling with. Nearly 20 percent of the fatalities in Indonesia this year were adults, says …
Patricia Grogg* – IPS/IFEJ
HAVANA, Nov 29 2007 (IPS) – With equal doses of caution and hope, Cuban researchers are moving forward with studies to test the cancer-fighting properties of the toxin produced by the blue scorpion (Rhopalurus junceus), a species endemic to this Caribbean island.
Extraction of venom from blue scorpion. Credit: Randy Rodríguez
We are concluding the studies of pre-clinical research in order to obtain registration and approval from Cuba s regulatory entities to begin clinical trials on humans, said m…
Abid Aslam
WASHINGTON, Jan 13 2008 (IPS) – Indian health projects are under the microscope following revelations of fraud and corruption in five ventures backed and overseen by the World Bank.
Under scrutiny in the unfolding scandal, which broke in 2005, are bank and government staff, private companies, and non-governmental organisations (NGOs).
Evidence of financial and procurement mischief has been uncovered by a detailed implementation review, or DIR, launched by the multilateral lender in 2006 with Indian government support. The bank released the review s findings late Friday.
The probe has revealed unacceptable indicators of fraud and corruption, said Robert Zoellick, the bank s president. The government of India and the World Bank are committed to getti…
Julio Godoy
BERLIN, Feb 20 2008 (IPS) – The future of a ban on smoking in public places in Germany is in doubt following a court order limiting application of any ban.
Germany became one of the last European countries to introduce a ban on smoking in public places at the start of this year. But the constitutional court of the federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate ruled Feb. 12 that one-room bars would be exempt from the ban on the ground that it would drive their owners bankrupt.
The court decision is provisional, and the judges want proof whether this differential treatment can be justified.
The court allowed arguments lodged by five small pub owners of Koblenz city, some 460 kilometres southwest of Berlin, who said the ban on smoking would force them to clo…
Interview with Heather Wokusch, author and blogger
TAMPA, Florida, Mar 25 2008 (IPS) – In early March, the Pentagon s Force Protection Agency released a colourless, odorless gas in Crystal City, Maryland as part of a simulated terror attack intended to track air flows and test an array of chemical sensors.
Heather Wokusch Credit: heatherwokusch.com
Officials insisted that the gas dispersed in Operation Urban Shield was nontoxic , but not everyone is buying that claim.
The Pentagon does minimise the risks of these tests, Heather Wokusch, an investigative journalist and…
Aaron Glantz
SAN FRANCISCO, May 2 2008 (IPS) – Arturo Gonzalez delivered his closing arguments inside a packed courtroom on the 17th floor of the Federal Building in downtown San Francisco.
A partner at the gigantic corporate law firm Morrison and Forrester, he s part of a team of lawyers seeking to force the Department of Veterans Affairs to provide better health care and more timely disability benefits to returning Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans.
The case, officially known as Veterans for Common Sense vs. Peake, represents the first class action lawsuit brought on behalf of the 1.7 million U.S. citizens who served in the war zones. Veterans say that over the last six years, the George W. Bush administration has systematically denied veterans the health care they …
Nergui Manalsuren
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 10 2008 (IPS) – Despite the admirable progress made by some African countries in preventing and treating HIV/AIDS since 2000, 14 million Africans have died of AIDS in that time span, and an additional 17 million have been infected, says a new report on HIV/AIDS on the continent.
According to the report Securing Our Future launched Monday by the Commission on HIV/AIDS and Governance in Africa, the disease is reducing capacity in all social and economic sectors, undermining and slowing the overall development of the region.
It estimates that by 2020, the nine most severely hit sub-Saharan countries may lose 13-26 percent of their agricultural workers to AIDS people who are also household heads, mothers and fathers of young children,…
Bernarda Claure* – Tierramérica
LA PAZ, Jul 10 2008 (IPS) – Indigenous communities in Bolivia and Brazil have declared an emergency in response to the construction of the Madera River Hydroelectric Complex, which Brasilia is pursuing even as independent research efforts try to measure the impacts of what will be one of South America s largest energy projects.
The town of Porto Velho on the Madeira River. Credit: Agencia Brasil
The government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva this year has proposed construction of the Jirau and San Anto…
PESHAWAR, Aug 6 2008 (IPS) – The polio eradication campaign has ground to a halt in the Swat Valley, in northern Pakistan, with the breakdown of a peace agreement with a hardline militant group.
TTP s Maulvi Omar (left) insists there is no ban on polio immunisation. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS
In fact, violence has escalated in recent weeks in the entire North Western Frontier Province (NWFP), except the Peshawar Valley, and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) with the Pa…