Emilio Godoy
SANTA MARÍA RAYÓN, Mexico, Feb 28 2010 (IPS) – The lives of many rural women and children in Mexico are changing, and the country s high deforestation rate could be reduced, as inexpensive fuel-efficient cook stoves are being distributed by non-governmental organisations with corporate and government support.
The open cooking fires replaced by the improved stoves cause respiratory and eye infections, as well as severe burns, which are especially frequent among young children who stumble or fall into their mothers fire pits.
Acute respiratory infections are among the main causes of childhood morbidity and mortality in Mexico and many other poor countries around the world.
The World Health Organisation (WHO), which has designated the issue as one …
Shailendra Singh
SUVA, Apr 1 2010 (IPS) – Two months after a new anti-prostitution law took effect, taxi driver Shiu Kumar says he sees fewer sex workers along Victoria Parade, the centre of Suva s nightlife. But while this has had a negative effect on his nighttime fares, he is nevertheless happy about the law.
This is a good law, he says, adding that he has been bothered by the sight of more and more young women taking to the streets.
It is not a view shared by many, though. Critics of the decree say that at best it is a stopgap measure. At worst, they say, it could increase the risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV, and of violence against sex workers.
Prostitution is a social redistribution mechanism and to try and forcefully s…
Marcela Valente
BUENOS AIRES, May 3 2010 (IPS) – Two years after a law was enacted that held out the promise of better road safety in Argentina, the country s death toll from traffic accidents is still one of the highest in Latin America.
Safety experts who hailed the law creating the National Road Safety Agency (ANSV) in April 2008 were pleased that the Agency secured an international loan this April to help implement the programme.
However, they concede that the ANSV has not produced the hoped-for results, and cast doubts on official statistics indicating a supposed fall in the accident rate so far this year.
The death toll from traffic accidents does not fall magically from one year to the next; that takes work over a longer timescale, Axel Dell Olio, a ro…
Jim Lobe*
WASHINGTON, Jun 16 2010 (IPS) – Thirty-five years after the end of the Vietnam War, a joint U.S.-Vietnamese panel endorsed a 10-year, 300-million-dollar plan of action to deal with the deadly health and environmental legacy of the U.S. military s widespread use of Agent Orange during the conflict.
The U.S. government, according to the panel, should provide most of the assistance, which would be designed both to clean up more than two dozen sites in southern Vietnam where contamination was particularly severe and to expand health and related care to people affected by Agent Orange and other dioxin-based herbicides.
We are talking about something that is a major legacy of the Vietnam War and a major irritant in this important relationship, said Walter Isaacso…
Stephen Leahy
BERLIN, Jul 14 2010 (IPS) – The failed war on drugs has not only badly damaged countries where it is waged, it is responsible for driving up HIV infection rates in some countries, says an official declaration endorsed Wednesday by three former Latin American presidents in advance of the XVIII International AIDS Conference that begins Jul. 18 in Vienna.
In Eastern Europe and Central Asia, injecting drug use is the primary cause of new HIV infections. Outside of sub- Saharan Africa, injecting drug use accounts for approximately one in three new cases of HIV, experts will report at the week-long meeting.
The war on drugs has failed Instead of sticking to failed policies with disastrous consequences, we must direct our efforts to the reduction of consumptio…
Susan Anyangu-Amu
NAIROBI, Aug 5 2010 (IPS) – Jubilant supporters say it is a new dawn for Kenya. Sixty-seven percent of votes cast endorsed a new constitution more than two decades after reform was first raised.
Speaking to IPS soon after the results were announced, Senior Counsel Paul Muite, a former member of parliament, expressed joy at the victory, equating it to the jubilation experienced when Kenya attained independence in 1963.
This is the rebirth of the state of Kenya in the sense that expectations of independence in 1963 were never realised. Those who took over then stepped into the shoes of the colonial masters and the socio-economic benefits ended up in the hands of a few, Muite said.
This is a dream come true for Kenya. It is the reason the Mau …
David Njagi
NAIROBI, Sep 3 2010 (IPS) – When 11-year-old Ronald Gathece was placed on antiretrovirals (ARVs) after being diagnosed HIV-positive, medical staff did not monitor his reaction to the treatment. But the side effects had been so bad that the young boy had contemplated suicide.
I would vomit and itch over my whole body after taking the drugs, the now 16-year-old Gathece remembers. This was made worse by the fact that there was barely anything to eat in the house because my grandmother was jobless. I stopped taking the drugs altogether and wished I could die since this was not an illness I had brought upon myself. Gathece had been born HIV-positive.
Fortunately, an HIV community outreach programme affiliated to the Kenya Network of Women with AIDS (KENWA) in …
IPS interviews CARLOS BRITO, CEO of Anheuser-Busch InBev
MONTEVIDEO, Sep 27 2010 (IPS) – Some two billion people around the world drink alcohol, a practice that has been around since time immemorial. Responsible drinking is only part of the picture; the WHO reports that the harmful use of alcohol affects tens of millions of people and kills two and a half million people every year, from causes ranging from illnesses to traffic accidents.
Carlos Brito Credit: Courtesy AB InBev
Industry self-regulation was one of the components of a global alcohol strategy launched by the WHO (World He…
Antoaneta Becker
LONDON, Oct 19 2010 (IPS) – China s rebel artist Ai Weiwei had intended a political message. And may be a truly memorable metaphor for the state of modern China and humanity as a whole. But the final outcome of his multimedia installation at the London s Tate Modern may have been rather unexpected, for what he got was a striking symbol of the Made in China effect on the world.
Ai Weiwei at the London gallery. Credit: Antoaneta Becker
Ai s mega-offering of 100 million handcrafted sunflower seeds covering the Tate Modern s vast lower floor…
Emilio Godoy
MEXICO CITY, Nov 19 2010 (IPS) – If Canadian filmmaker David Cronenberg were interested in making a sequel to his 1996 film Crash , in which the main characters derive sexual pleasure from car crashes, Mexico could be an ideal location, due to the large number of traffic accidents in this country.
We have a major problem in terms of road safety, said Martha Híjar, a researcher with the non-governmental Fundación Entornos, a non-profit civil association dedicated to studying solutions for health problems generated by urban growth.
Many of the prevention measures that have been used in Mexico have been imported from other countries, and are heavily focused on drivers, while ignoring actors like pedestrians and cyclists, she told IPS.
Road accide…