Haider Rizvi
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 30 2011 (IPS) – Is coca a dangerous drug that should be tightly regulated, or an essential part of Andean indigenous people s cultural and medicinal heritage? Or perhaps both?
In the coming months, diplomats at the U.N. body will face the thorny issue of how to address the production and use of coca plants in the Andes region of South America.
The United States and some of its European allies contend that coca leaf is a narcotic substance and that its production must be banned in accordance with the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs.
The Bolivian government strongly disagrees, and for the past two years has been calling for an amendment to article 49 of the U.N. anti-narcotics treaty that considers coca production unlawf…
Emilio Godoy
MEXICO CITY, Jun 3 2011 (IPS) – Emissions of radioactive materials from the burning of fossil fuels and the production of chemical fertilisers are another reason to come up with sustainable alternatives, experts say.
Large-scale treatment of raw materials that contain naturally occurring radioactive material can lead to the concentration of radiation in products or waste, as in the case of the production of artificial phosphate fertilisers as well as oil and gas.
The Fukushima nuclear plant disaster caused by the Mar. 11 earthquake and tsunami in Japan has heightened global awareness on the dangers of nuclear energy, and has awakened new concern about all sources of radiation ahead of , celebrated Jun. 5.
Combustion of oil, natural gas and coal Me…
Isaiah Esipisu
NAIROBI, Jul 21 2011 (IPS) – The world had an opportunity to save thousands of lives that are being lost in parts of Somalia due to the famine, if only the donor community had paid attention to the early warning systems that predicted it eight months ago.
Children from families displaced by the drought line up to receive food at a feeding centre in Mogadishu. Credit: Abdurrahman Warsa…
Thalif Deen
STOCKHOLM, Aug 24 2011 (IPS) – When world leaders meet in Brazil next June for a U.N. Conference on Sustainable Development, the third since the landmark 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, the question lingering in the minds of many is: what really is sustainable development in the context of a fast-changing world of growing poverty, hunger, pollution, political repression and social unrest?
For Sweden, one of the key donors of development aid to the world’s poorest countries, it means good governance, democracy, capacity building, human development and people’s power.
My basic premise for global sustainability is a people-centred approach: sustainable development must consider the rights, needs and influence of everyone, says Gunilla Carlsson, Swed…
WASHINGTON, Oct 1 2011 (IPS) – Home to a fast-growing network of farmers markets, cooperatives and organic farms, but also the breeding ground for mammoth for-profit corporations that now hold patents to over 50 percent of the world s seeds, the United States is weathering a battle between Big Agro and a ripening movement for food justice and security.
HAMBURG, Jan 20 2012 (IPS) – Shortly before midnight last Saturday, Alexander, a 24-year-old law student, stepped out of his small apartment in Hamburg and set off for a jaunt around the local supermarkets to pilfer their garbage containers.
Consumers in rich countries waste 222 million tonnes of food each year. Credit: Patrick Lentz/CC-BY-2.0
Alex, who did not want his family name to appear in the newspapers, dines almost exclusively on the food that other Ger…
NEW DELHI, Mar 1 2012 (IPS) – At the intensive care unit of the state-run All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) hospital in New Delhi, a two-year-old battered baby girl is fighting to survive.
The doctors attending to her have waged a six-week battle to keep her alive, but they are quickly losing hope that she will ever live a normal life after the torture she endured at such a tender age.
When she was first brought to the hospital by a 15-year-old sexual abuse victim, Baby Falak was almost dead and covered in bite marks, apparently inflicted by the young girl who brought her in.
In medical terms, Falak is suffering from battered baby syndrome, in which an infant sustains injuries as a result of physical abuse, usually inflicted by an adult caregiver.
TOKYO, Apr 9 2012 (IPS) – The discovery of radioactive contamination in ‘shiitake’ mushrooms grown in Manazuru town, Kanagawa prefecture, some 300 km away from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, has raised public clamour for compensation.
Soon after the discovery, on Apr. 5, Kanagawa authorities directed farmers and organisations dealing with agricultural produce not to ship shiitake mushrooms, a delicacy prized for its nutritive and medicinal properties in East Asian countries.
Some of the Manazuru mushroom samples were found to have over 141 becquerels of radioactive cesium per kg, while samples taken from Murata, Miyagi Prefecture, showed cesium levels as high as 350 becquerels.
The discovery comes as residents of areas surrounding the Fukush…
Jeepney drivers and operators are using Eway54’s Ecodiesel made from used cooking oil. Credit: Kara Santos/IPS
MANILA, Jun 22 2012 (IPS) – For the past three months, a transport group in the Philippines has been making use of biodiesel processed from used cooking oil for their jeepneys.
Jeepneys, public transport vehicles originally made from U.S. military jeeps left over from World War II, are one of the most popular means of transport in the country.
Pasang Masda, a national association of jeepney drivers and operators, has partnered with EWay 54, a company dealing in the propagation and education of alternative fuels for the benefit of the environment.
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Fishermen dock their boats on a thin strip of sand at Kollam, in Kerala state of south India. Credit: Max Martin/IPS
NEW DELHI, Aug 3 2012 (IPS) – Far-flung South Asian communities, from the high Himalayan slopes to the Indian Ocean coasts, united in the face of extreme and uncertain weather, continue to hold on to the hope that the Rio+20 focus on disaster risk reduction (DRR) will positively influence national policies.
“There is hope in India, the biggest country in the region, that the final statement at the Rio+20 summit titled ‘The Future We Want’ gets translated into national policy before it is too late,” Vinod Chandra Menon, former member of India’s Na…