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…
Stephen Leahy
KAUAI, Hawaii, U.S., Apr 1 2011 (IPS) – Be fantastic, don t use plastic! chanted a troop of 10-year- olds from President Thomas Jefferson Elementary School in Honolulu at the conclusion of an international conference on the millions of tonnes of trash that enter the oceans every year, with serious consequences for marine life and habitats as well as to human health and the global economy.
Most participants were in a celebratory mood at the Fifth International Marine Debris Conference, which concluded Mar. 25 with the Honolulu Commitment to address the growing problem of marine debris.
But Captain Charles Moore, the man who brought the world s attention to the scope and scale of the problem, was not celebrating.
I ve been doing this for 30 years …
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…