Lily Hough

WASHINGTON, Aug 2 2011 (IPS) – The Barack Obama administration promised Tuesday that the U.S. would not prosecute relief agencies for delivering aid to parts of Somalia controlled by the Islamist insurgent group al- Shabaab, despite concerns that unrestricted aid in the failed state would be diverted to the wrong hands.
We have issued new guidance to allow more flexibility to provide a wider range of aid to a large number of areas in need, a senior administration official said during a conference call Tuesday with reporters. We hope this guidance clarifies that aid workers who are partnering with us to help save lives under difficult and dangerous conditions are not in conflict with U.S. law and regulations that seek to limit resources flowing to al- Shabaab.

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WASHINGTON, Sep 8 2011 (IPS) – The fight against oil and gas giants is heating up in the U.S., with new waves of protest and civil disobedience springing up across the country.
Empty Threats Unraveled
“It is deeply disconcerting that the industry not only has a swarm of lobbyists here in Washington, as well as in all the state legislatures where decisions about drilling are made, they’ve also got multimillion dollar advertising campaigns pushing their agenda and commissioning think tanks to put out reports in support of the industry,” Mitch Jones of FWW told IPS.
Dangling potential economic destruction and mass job losses as a result of clean energy practices is an old industry tactic.
In 1997, while the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was attempting to secure …

WASHINGTON, Oct 21 2011 (IPS) – If the U.S. Supreme Court agrees to hear a case on gene patents, observers say the resulting face-off between a large genetics testing company and a vocal coalition of breast cancer patient advocates – will have a massive impact because of what is at stake: valuable information about the human genome.

Structure of the BRCA1 protein. Credit: emw/creative commons

Last week, the (ACLU) announced they will ask the Supreme Court to rule on the gene diagnostics company Myriad Genetics patents on isolated BRCA-1 and BRCA-…

RIO DE JANEIRO, Dec 8 2011 (IPS) – A new paediatric formulation developed in Brazil holds out hope for a cure for over 90 percent of newborn babies infected with Chagas disease, a parasitic infection endemic in 21 Latin American countries, where it kills more people every year than malaria.

The vinchuca bug, which transmits Chagas disease, often lives in cracks in mud walls. Credit: Paul Lowry/CC BY 2.0

The new paediatric dosage form of be…

BULAWAYO , Feb 8 2012 (IPS) – Sibongile Dube knows the devastation heavy rain can leave in its wake. A villager in the lowveld area of Mberengwa in Zimbabwe’s Midlands province, Dube’s home is one of many that were washed away by flash floods last year.

The Zambezi River Authority told villagers living downstream on the Zambezi (pictured) to e…

Julio Godoy

BERLIN, Mar 14 2012 (IPS) – The recent death of five prematurely born children in the northern German city Bremen as a result of infections acquired in the hospital has strengthened fears among environmental and health experts that massive use of antibiotics in industrial livestock farming is creating extremely resistant bacteria.
The children who died last December and earlier this year in Bremen, some 300 kilometres west of Berlin, were victims of infections with highly resistant bacteria, including the extended-spectrum beta-lactamase (ESBL). Similar infections have been detected in other hospitals in Germany, though these were not fatal.

The cases have raised renewed questions about lack of hygiene in German livestock farming, especially in industrial …

WASHINGTON, Apr 25 2012 (IPS) – Within a decade, most of the global population could have access to affordable basic health care – if a series of ambitious programmes are put into action around the world. This is according to a new report released by the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) here on Tuesday.
By 2008, nearly 50 countries had succeeded in implementing near- universal health coverage, according to International Labour Organization statistics cited in the report. At the moment, almost 100 countries are reporte…

Several of the children in Abala camp are visibly malnourished, and NGO workers are concerned about potential epidemics. Credit: William Lloyd-George/IPS

SEGOU, Mali, May 25 2012 (IPS) – Her neat, bright yellow headscarf matches the rest of her outfit, but contrasts with her weary expression. Sokona Soumounou sits a little apart from the crowd queueing for assistance from the World Food Programme in the southern Mali town of Ségou.

I m staying with my younger brother here, with four children whose parents are elsewhere, she told IPS.

This week was the first time there was assistance of any kind for Soumounou or any of the roughly 3,600 people w…

WASHINGTON, Jul 12 2012 (IPS) – The world’s population now stands at about seven billion, and by 2050, this figure will hit a whopping nine billion.

Like these newly born twins, more children are born daily into families who can barely afford to raise a child. Credit: Zofeen Ebrahim/IPS

In his new, State of the World 2012: Moving Toward Sustainable Prosperity , Robert Engelman, president of the , outlines nine population strategies that he argues will effectively halt population expansion just short of that figure.

Engel…

Asbestos cement roofing sheets. Credit: Asbestos Testing CC BY-SA 2.0

RIO DE JANEIRO, Sep 3 2012 (IPS) – Brazil’s Supreme Court is assessing the level of risk posed by asbestos to human health, while industry defends its use under controlled conditions, and associations of people with asbestos-related diseases argue that it should not be used under any circumstances, even with regulations.

More than 35 experts testified in the Supreme Court hearings held on Aug. 24 and Aug. 31 in Brasilia at the request of the Brazilian Chrysotile Institute (IBC), which serves the asbestos industry that provides 170,000 direct jobs and generates 1.5 billion dollars a year in re…