Month: October 2024

Stephen Leahy

BROOKLIN, Canada, Jan 9 2007 (IPS) – Widespread use of genetically engineered (GE) crops remains limited worldwide, even as growing weed and pest issues are forcing farmers to use ever greater amounts of pesticides.
More than 70 percent of large-scale GE planting is still limited to the U.S. and Argentina, according to a new report released Tuesday by Friends of the Earth International (FOEI).

No GM (GE) crop on the market today offers benefits to the consumer in terms of quality or price, and to date these crops have done nothing to alleviate hunger or poverty in Africa or elsewhere, said Nnimmo Bassey of Friends of the Earth Africa in Nigeria.

The great majority of GM (GE) crops cultivated today are used as high-priced animal feed to supply r…

Emad Mekay

WASHINGTON, Mar 15 2007 (IPS) – Leaders of indigenous communities in Ecuador are pressing their government to investigate senior executives from U.S. oil giant Chevron for an alleged environmental fraud scheme in the mid-1990s related to a long-running six-billion dollar class action suit in the South American nation.
But the U.S. oil giant vehemently denies the accusations and says it has already been absolved by the local authorities.

Leaders from CONAIE, Ecuador #39s powerful indigenous federation, which represents millions of people, say in a new letter to the Quito government that the U.S. company defrauded the authorities during an environmental clean-up more than nine years ago.

The indigenous leaders named Rodrigo Perez Pallares, Chevron #39…

Mithre J. Sandrasagra

UNITED NATIONS, Apr 18 2007 (IPS) – The protection and well-being of children in Sudan are at a critical juncture, according to a report released Wednesday by Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict, a global network of non-governmental organisations.
Despite the 2005 peace agreement that ended 21 years of civil conflict between the government of Sudan and the Sudan People s Liberation Movement, Darfur remains host to one of the largest humanitarian operations in the world: 92 NGOs and Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and 14 UN agencies maintain a presence there.

According to the report, Sudan s Children at a Crossroads: An Urgent Need for Protection , Sudanese government restrictions, deteriorating security, poor roads, and limited staffing…

Moyiga Nduru

JOHANNESBURG, May 25 2007 (IPS) – A shortage of health care workers is paralysing the health system in Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique and South Africa, and threatens the lives of millions, particularly in rural areas, warns Medecins Sans Frontieres, a global nongovernmental organisation specialising in medical services.
A new report by the organisation, launched in South Africa s commercial hub of Johannesburg yesterday (24 May), shows that only South Africa has met the World Health Organisation (WHO) target for an adequate supply of health care workers: 74.3 doctors, 393 nurses and 468 health providers per 100,000 people.

The minimum WHO requirement is 20 doctors, 100 nurses and 228 health providers per 100,000 people. Even if South Africa meets the WHO tar…

Claudia Ciobanu

BUCHAREST, Jul 27 2007 (IPS) – The release of six Bulgarian medics detained in Libya for eight years seems to have led to a sudden normalisation of ties between Libya and the European Union.
In 1999, five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor were imprisoned in Libya for allegedly intentionally infecting 426 infants with HIV. The medics had been working since 1998 in a hospital in Benghazi province. Almost 50 of those children have died.

On May 6, 2004, the Criminal Court in Benghazi sentenced the five Bulgarians and the Palestinian to death by firing squad.

The medics denied having purposefully infected the infants, and several specialist reports including one published in 2006 by renowned magazine Nature confirmed their claim that the inf…

Mario de Queiroz

LISBON, Aug 24 2007 (IPS) – There are not enough doctors in Portugal s public health system, because too many have left to enter the private sector. This has forced socialist Prime Minister José Sócrates administration to seek rapid and drastic solutions, one of which is to attract doctors from the developing world.
One hundred Uruguayan doctors will travel to Portugal in the next few months to fill vacancies in the National Health Service (SNS), following an agreement reached between Lisbon and Montevideo, Health Minister Antonio Correia de Campos announced early this month.

The agreement, which emerged from meetings of the Iberoamerican health ministers, will be signed in late September during an official visit to Portugal by Uruguay s left-wing P…

Francis Kokutse

ACCRA, Sep 26 2007 (IPS) – We prayed to God to open the heavens, but this is not what we expected, says Peter Nayoon, a farmer from Gushiegu in the north of Ghana, one of several African countries blighted by floods over recent weeks. I am finished, he adds, pointing dejectedly towards the area that used to be his yam farm. Who would give me money to start a new life?
A very dry spell preceding the floods had affected the whole country, almost leading to the closure of the hydroelectric dam at Akosombo in the south-east; this facility is fed from the north by the Volta River.

Then, in late August, came the rains, deluging the Northern region and the Upper East and Upper West regions, also in the north.

The downpours obliged families which had …