Diana Mendoza interviews BIENVENIDO OPLAS, JR., small government advocate
MANILA, Jan 12 2010 (IPS) – As president of an independent think tank advocating minimal government, Bienvenido Oplas, Jr. believes that a society will be more peaceful and dynamic if people will assume more individual and voluntary responsibilities over their lives, their families and their communities.
This, according to Oplas, is the essence of ‘civil society and what the Minimal Government (MG) Thinkers, Inc. stands for.
People who are afraid of responsibilities are afraid of freedom itself, he says on his organisation s website. It is big and intrusive government that often rewards individual irresponsibility with subsidies and welfare.
Composed of a group of professionals and s…
William Fisher
NEW YORK, Mar 18 2010 (IPS) – Despite the fact that the United States spends more on maternal health than any other country in the world, deaths in childbirth among U.S. women are on the rise and already surpass the morbidity rates in most developed countries.
That s the principal conclusion reached in a new study by Amnesty International and data from the Organisation for Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the U.N. s World Health Organisation (WHO).
The Amnesty study, entitled Deadly Delivery , reports that deaths from pregnancy and childbirth in the United States have doubled in the past 20 years from 6.6 per 100,000 live births in 1987 to 13.3 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2006.
That would mean that, of the four million women who give…
A. D. McKenzie
PARIS, Apr 22 2010 (IPS) – Human rights groups are urging the French government to adopt a law that would ban the financing of companies that produce cluster munitions, the deadly bombs that have killed or maimed thousands of civilians in the past 40 years.
A child victim of cluster munitions. Credit: A. Carle – Handicap International
France is among the 106 countries that have signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions, which will enter into force Aug. 1. The convention has been ratified by 30 sta…
Kristin Palitza
CAPE TOWN , May 28 2010 (IPS) – Two small boys play quietly on a jungle gym, some distance away from other children. The six-year-old twins, who live at the Masigcine children s centre in Mfuleni township, 35 kilometres out of Cape Town, are severely traumatised from being orphaned at the age of one and have difficulty relating to their peers.
The number of orphans in South Africa has risen by 4.9 percent since 2005. Credit: Kristin Palitza/IPS
We ha…
Ignatius Banda
BULAWAYO, Jul 26 2010 (IPS) – As African Union heads of state consider child and maternal health at the 2010 summit in Kampala, Uganda, the perennial question of user fees has reared its head in Zimbabwe. Fees for services are opening a growing gap between policy and implementation in maternal health care in the Southern African country.
Under government policy, care for pregnant women, new mothers and infants receive free care. But the country s rapid economic decline in the past decade has compelled health institutions to raise their own revenue to meet costs.
Women complain they are being denied health access because of failure to meet maternity and other hospital costs. New mother Thandeka Mbewe says she has been through it all, and is having second…
Susan Anyangu-Amu
NAIROBI, Aug 23 2010 (IPS) – During every year that ends in an even number, the month of August is a special occasion for young men in Kenya s Western Province. During this month thousands of boys aged between 10 and 18 undergo male circumcision something that is seen as an important rite of passage into manhood among their communities. But it is also a time were nearly half the young men circumcised will have to fight for their lives.
Nastasya Tay
JOHANNESBURG, Sep 16 2010 (IPS) – The mooted restructuring of the revenue-sharing agreement of the world s oldest customs union could lead to at least two of its Southern African members collapsing into failed states status as well as macroeconomic crises in two of their neighbours in the sub-region.
SACU s smaller members states depend on import revenue transfers for their survival. Credit: Nastasya Tay/IPS
Even before celebrating the cen…
Brahima Ouédraogo
OUAGADOUGOU, Nov 9 2010 (IPS) – Elizabeth Kaboré says she has paid for each of her visits to the clinic, despite a government promise that prenatal check-ups in health centres would be free.
Far from being free, at each consultation, I ve had to pay 600 CFA francs (around $1.20) to see the midwives, says Kaboré, several months pregnant. For an injection, I pay 100 FCFA and the mid-wife explained to me that this money was for the guards at the facility. Human rights organisation Amnesty International points to financial obstacles as one of the leading obstacles preventing the reduction of high rates of maternal mortality in Burkina Faso.
In our society, it s men who decide; women never have the power. Women are deprived of a number of their ri…
Irwin Loy
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia, Dec 14 2010 (IPS) – Every day, twice a day for the last seven years, Men Thol has swallowed a set of pills that gives him the strength to lead a normal life.
Intellectual property provisions could put ARV pills out of the reach of Cambodians who need them. Credit: Irwin Loy/IPS
The 39-year-old tested positive for HIV in the mid-1990s. At first, he relied on traditional medicines usually ground up tr…
Milagros Salazar* – Tierramérica
LIMA, Jan 27 2011 (IPS) – A legislative bill in Peru aims to channel the fines for environmental crimes to repair the damages to rivers, soils and other public goods that directly affect the population. Until now, the fines collected have ended up elsewhere in the government.
Caudalosa workers clean up mining tailings in the Opamayo River. Credit: Milagros Salazar/IPS
The money would have to go to the area where the offence occurred. That s common se…