Category: Wellness

DEVELOPMENT: Global Campaign to Salvage U.N.’s Health Goals

Thalif Deen UNITED NATIONS, Jun 15 2009 (IPS) – The global economic crisis, which has pushed millions more into extreme poverty, is threatening to have a devastating impact on the health of women and children. A new study, released Monday, says the most elusive of the U.N. s eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are the […]

FILM: Shattering the Myth of “Agrarian America”

Sherazad Hamit NEW YORK, Jul 8 2009 (IPS) – How is it that you can buy a 99-cent cheeseburger but not even a head of broccoli? wonders Michael Pollan, author and co-narrator of the new documentary Food, Inc. . Joel Salatin of Polyface Farm and his grass-fed herd. Credit: Food Inc. Without question, since the […]

HEALTH-ASIA: Media Missing the HIV/AIDS Story

BALI, Aug 12 2009 (IPS) – The scant presence of mainstream media organisations at the 9th International Conference on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific (ICAAP) was a sad reflection of how the press was overlooking the big story on HIV/AIDS, say some journalists and development analysts at Asia s largest meeting on the pandemic. […]

RIGHTS-PAKISTAN: ‘The Problem Is We All Work in Silos’

Zofeen Ebrahim interviews NAFIS SADIK, special adviser to the U.N. Secretary General and special envoy for HIV and AIDS in Asia BERLIN, Sep 10 2009 (IPS) – As secretary-general of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in September 1994, Nafis Sadik had described this groundbreaking event as a quantum leap in reinforcing commitments […]

AFGHANISTAN: Gov’t and Donors Fail to Protect Women’s Rights

Eli Clifton WASHINGTON, Dec 7 2009 (IPS) – Attention over the past week has focused on United States President Barack Obama s decision to surge troop levels in Afghanistan to 30,000 and begin a drawdown in 18-months, but a new report calls attention to the failure of the Afghanistan government and international donors to protect […]

KENYA: Anti-Counterfeit Law “Violates Right to Life and Health”

Susan Anyangu-Amu NAIROBI, Dec 21 2009 (IPS) – Kenya s new Anti-Counterfeit Act will be challenged on Mar 8 next year in the country s Constitutional Court on the basis that it violates the right to health. The petitioners, three people living with HIV, argue that the law confuses generic and fake medicine. This could […]

KENYA: Victory for Anti-Abortion Lobby

Susan Anyangu-Amu NAIROBI, Feb 2 2010 (IPS) – The threat by influential Christian leaders to mobilise a vote against Kenya s draft constitution if it does not explicitly prevent any expansion of abortion rights appears to have succeeded. Thousands of young women risk their health procuring abortions each year: will a new constitution entrench restrictive […]

ENVIRONMENT-UGANDA: Landslides – Experts Warn Worst is Yet to Come

Joshua Kyalimpa KAMPALA, Mar 9 2010 (IPS) – Fourteen-year-old Isaac Wadyegere of Bundesi village in Bududa district woke up to a rainy and chilly Monday morning and went to school as usual. But Mar. 1 was not a usual day in eastern Uganda. Officials assessing the damage caused by the latest landslides in Kabale, western […]