David Cronin
THE HAGUE, Jul 4 2007 (IPS) – The European Commission has decided that its development aid activities should not focus on health and education, a senior official with the EU executive has admitted.
Anti-poverty activists have recently criticised the Commission for paying little heed to such issues as AIDS and illiteracy in a series of aid plans it is drawing up for the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries.
Of 61 such country strategy papers so far drafted by the Commission for the 2007-13 period, just two recommend that health and five recommend that education should be a priority. Nineteen, on the other hand, suggest that transport should be a focal sector.
Françoise Moreau, head of the policy coherence unit in the Commission #39s dire…
Gustavo Capdevila
GENEVA, Aug 6 2007 (IPS) – Non-governmental organisations that advocate poor countries access to affordable medicines applauded an Indian court s dismissal of a challenge brought by Swiss-based drug-maker Novartis.
The ruling handed down Monday by the High Court of Chennai, the Indian city known as Madras (the name was formally changed in 1996), is a basic condition for achieving access to drugs, not only in India, but also in other developing countries, Julien Reinhard, director of the health campaign at the Swiss NGO Berne Declaration, told IPS.
Tido von Schoen-Angerer, head of Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines, said the decision is a huge relief for millions of patients and doctors …
Mario Osava
MAURILANDIA, Brazil, Sep 3 2007 (IPS) – The sugarcane workers in this small Brazilian town ate at least 200 of the little roasted wild birds. But they had not hunted them. They merely collected the roasted bodies of the birds that died in the controlled fire set in the cane field.
Credit: Mario Osava
For me it s the saddest thing. There are no more wild birds or animals in Maurilandia. Because there are no more forests, the few that are left take refuge in the sugarcane and die when the fields are set on fire to prepare the cane for the harvest, says Corí Alves Ferreira, recalling the macabre feast.
Sugarcan…
Abid Aslam
WASHINGTON, Oct 3 2007 (IPS) – Life high off the hog is costing the U.S. economy more than 1 trillion dollars a year in lost productivity and medical treatment costs, according to a private foundation that says the toll can be avoided.
The rate of childhood obesity in the United States has tripled in the last 15 years. Credit: Robert Lawton
Seven chronic diseases cancer, diabetes, hypertension, stroke, heart disease, pulmonary conditions,…
Steven Lang
JOHANNESBURG, Oct 28 2007 (IPS) – Sewage plants in South Africa s northern Gauteng Province poured millions of litres of untreated waste into three rivers between the capital, Pretoria, and the commercial centre of Johannesburg earlier this month. National power utility Eskom cut electricity to the treatment plants, which were then unable to process the waste water before it was released into the rivers.
Eskom cut the electricity as part of a national programme aimed at helping it cope with excessive demand for power. In recent months, the utility has systematically turned off electricity to large parts of the country because it has been unable to meet the demand for power.
An engineer employed by the city of Pretoria told IPS that over a two-day period, t…
Lynette Lee Corporal
SINGAPORE, Nov 29 2007 (IPS) – A report released by the Asian Development Bank (AsDB) in this affluent city-state on Thursday urges the region s policymakers to place water-related issues high on their development agenda.
The #39Asian Water Development Outlook 2007 #39 (AWDO) outlines for leaders the crucial role that they can play in finding sustainable water management solutions to such issues as lack of access to drinking water for an estimated 700 million people, the problems created by water-borne diseases and degradation of land-water ecosystems.
One of the greatest challenges we are facing now in terms of water management reforms is finding committed leaders who have the vision and courage to promote change in their sectors, said AsDB acti…
James Hall
MBABANE, Jan 10 2008 (IPS) – As the new school year begins here many destitute or orphaned children are in need of assistance to pay for their educations. An unknown number of urban youngsters, however, are slipping through the social welfare net.
Impoverished children in the country s urban areas might run into the thousands, Juanita Mkhonta, a social welfare worker in the central commercial town Manzini, told IPS.
It occurred to me during the Christmas holidays, when there were several news stories about urban orphans receiving food gift baskets, Mkhonta said. I thought, if they were discovered by philanthropic individuals without the knowledge of the food aid organizations, how many of these uncounted kids are also lost to the school aid assistance sys…
José Adán Silva
MANAGUA, Feb 18 2008 (IPS) – Military sources in Nicaragua and Organisation of American States (OAS) officials warned that dozens of minefields remain live and dangerous in this country a legacy of the 1981-1990 civil war.
Carlos Orozco, regional coordinator for the OAS Assistance Programme for Demining in Central America (PADCA), told IPS that 51 minefields have been discovered in the border zone with Honduras, an area where about 24,000 campesinos (small farmers) live.
This area was the theatre of war between the so-called contra fighters , irregular rightwing forces organised and financed by the United States, and the Sandinista People s Army (EPS), the government armed forces, reorganised after the leftwing Sandinista guerrillas overthrew the dec…
David Cronin
BRUSSELS, Mar 19 2008 (IPS) – The European Union has made a fresh complaint to Thailand over policies aimed at guaranteeing that the poor are not deprived of vital medicines.
Shortly before leaving office, former Thai health minister Mongkol Na Songkhla issued compulsory licences in January this year, overruling patents on four treatments for cancer. This was the latest in a series of decisions by the Bangkok government designed to bring down the prices of drugs that would otherwise be too expensive for a large section of the country s population.
The EU s executive, the European Commission, has requested the newly installed government headed by Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej, to reconsider the move.
The EU s call comes despite its recognition th…
Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 29 2008 (IPS) – The spreading food crisis triggered primarily by rising prices, declining outputs and growing scarcities worldwide is threatening to impact heavily on the most vulnerable in society: women and children.
The United Nations and international humanitarian organisations fear the crisis may get worse before its gets better.
Even temporarily depriving children of the nutrients they need to grow and thrive can leave permanent scars in terms of their physical growth and intellectual potential, warns Andrew Thorne-Lyman, a nutritionist at the Rome-based World Food Programme (WFP).
The U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA) is particularly concerned with the impact of the current crisis on pregnant women and nursing mothers.
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