BAKU, Oct 18 2012 – Azerbaijani officials appear to buy into the idea that taxation policy can be an effective way of managing the environment.

While environmentalists are generally supportive of a government idea to introduce a “green tax” on companies, some experts voice concern that such a provision would be prone to manipulation.

Despite various clean-up efforts over the past decade, Azerbaijan wins few international accolades for the state of its environment. Problems range from pollution of the Caspian-Sea’s coastline to large-scale deforestation and inadequate wastewater treatment facilities.

Azerbaijani environmental specialists name the oil-and-gas sector, petrochemical factories, large-scale corporate farms, and cement and concrete plants as among…

Nearly 2.5 billion people around the world don’t have access to sanitation. Credit: Charles Mpaka/IPS

GENEVA, Nov 18 2012 (IPS) – Organisers of this year’s World Toilet Day, which falls on Nov. 19, are using the slogan ‘I give a shit – do you?’ to break the silence around the crucial issue of sanitation and remind the international community that 2.5 billion people around the world don’t have access to clean and private toilets.

Improving these figures, and achieving the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of halving the number of people without basic sanitation by 2015, needs a change of mindset and strong political will, not financial resourc…

ATLANTA, Georgia, Jan 10 2013 (IPS) – Georgia Power, a subsidiary of Southern Company, one of the largest utilities in the U.S. south, plans to retire 15 coal and oil-fired energy generating units at four different plants, in the latest sign that a national campaign against coal is gaining traction.

The latest announcement by Georgia Power brings to 129 the total of plant retirements announced for closure either in whole or in part since Sierra Club launched the Beyond Coal Campaign in 2002. Credit: public domain

The 15 units comprise a total of 2,061 megawatts, one quarter of Georgia Power’s coal fleet.

Georgia Power will seek permissi…

The iconic statue of a knotted gun barrel outside U.N. headquarters was created by Swedish artist Fredrik Reuterswärd and is titled “Non-Violence”. Credit: Tressia Boukhors/IPS

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 22 2013 (IPS) – The U.N. organ tasked with maintaining international peace and security harbours a serious conflict at its core.

The Security Council’s five permanent members (P5) – United States, Russia, China, the United Kingdom and France – along with Germany, are the world’s six leading arms exporters, often shipping weapons used to perpetuate violence across the globe.

Meanwhile, over 150 member states have gathered at U.N. headquarters, from Mar. 1…

Honiara’s rapid urban growth and increased urban waste have become the focus of municipal efforts to stem the spread of dengue fever. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS

HONIARA, Solomon Islands, May 15 2013 (IPS) – City and health authorities in the Solomon Islands, located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, are calling for effective and consistent urban waste management as they battle to control a serious outbreak of dengue fever, the world’s fastest spreading vector-borne viral disease, which was identified in the country in February.

This archipelago nation of more than 900 forest-covered islands, lying just east of Papua New Guinea, h…

In this column, Jomo Kwame Sundaram, assistant director-general for economic and social development at the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), writes that while the Millennium Development Goal of halving hunger by 2015 is within reach, much more needs to be done to eradicate malnutrition, which is the underlying cause of 2.6 million child deaths each year and the reason why a quarter of the world’s children, including a third of children in developing countries, are stunted.

Camps for internally displaced people (IDPs) in northern Pakistan are breeding grounds for malnutrition. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS

ROME, Jun 6 2013 (IPS) – Betw…

At a shipbreaking yard in Dhaka. Credit: Mahmud/Map.

BRUSSELS, Jul 17 2013 (IPS) – Hundreds of European vessels are scrapped under hazardous conditions in South Asia every year. European parliamentarians have approved a new regulation to tackle the problem but critics say it will have very limited impact.

The European Parliament s Environment Committee voted last in favour of a proposal aiming to put an end to European ships being recklessly scrapped in developing countries.

With this, we will have a safer disposal of ships. About 90 percent of the European vessels are scrapped illegally and the Basel Convention has failed to do something about …

In markets and on roadsides across Yaoundé, counterfeit and illegal drugs are stacked on wooden racks and tables, openly displayed for sale. Credit: Monde Kingsley Nfor/IPS

YAOUNDE, Sep 5 2013 (IPS) – When Francois Biloa fell ill with malaria, his family did what they had always done in the past – they gave him anti-malaria drugs and antibiotics bought from the local market. Only when his condition worsened and he became bedridden and fell unconscious, did his family take him to a local clinic in Cameroon’s capital Yaoundé.

According to the clinic’s health attendant, six out of every 10 patients there had been using illegal or counterfeit drugs readily …

A vendor selling fish at a market in Grenada. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

WARSAW, Nov 15 2013 (IPS) – Eating fish has been an integral part of the Caribbean s cultural traditions for centuries. Fish is also a major source of food and essential nutrients, especially in rural areas where there are scores of small coastal communities.

“That is the protein that they have to put in their pot, and sometimes it has to stretch for very many mouths,” Dr. Susan Singh-Renton, deputy executive director of the Caribbean Regional Fisheries Mechanism (CRFM), told IPS.”Globally we have to be prepared for significant economic and ecosystem service losses.” — Ulf Riebesell

A woman sits in front of a camp after receiving oil and wheat from a U.N. distribution centre in Peshawar. Sixty percent of Pakistan’s population lives below the poverty line. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS

WASHINGTON, Dec 18 2013 (IPS) – The World Bank has raised some 52 billion dollars, a record amount, for its fund for development in the world’s poorest countries, though some are expressing concerns over the terms under which some of this money is being offered by donor governments.

The bank made the announcement Tuesday in Moscow, where donors wrapped up a two-day pledging summit to top up funding for the International Development Association (IDA), the …