Dalia Acosta
HAVANA, Jun 6 2008 (IPS) – New horizons opened up for transsexuals in Cuba with the approval of a Public Health Ministry resolution that establishes guidelines for their health care, including free gender reassignment operations.
It was just approved. The operations will begin to be carried out as soon as the Cuban medical team is ready to start, Mariela Castro, head of the National Centre for Sex Education (CENESEX), told IPS.
Since 2004, Castro, President Raúl Castro s daughter, has been the driving force in the effort to achieve integral health care for transsexuals in Cuba.
With the support of international experts, a team of Cuban specialists has been preparing for months to carry out sex change surgery, said Castro, who added that the oper…
Julio Godoy
BERLIN, Jul 8 2008 (IPS) – Confirmation that radioactive brine has been leaking for two decades from a German underground deposit for nuclear waste is yet another blow to the idea that nuclear power can safely increase electricity generation and simultaneously reduce emissions.
Radioactive leaks from the nuclear waste deposit Asse II near Braunschweig in Lower Saxony, some 225 km southwest of Berlin, were first discovered in 1988. The state-owned Helmholtz Institute for Scientific Research, which operates the centre, officially admitted the leaks only Jun. 16, under pressure from the German press.
Helmholtz spokesperson Heinz-Joerg Haury told German daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung that researchers did not consider that the leaks were worth a declaration to the …
Interview with Nazneen Damji of UNIFEM
MEXICO CITY, Aug 5 2008 (IPS) – Of the over 30 million people living with HIV, half are women and the rate of infections in women is rising, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. What s more, women s rights groups say gender inequalities are fuelling the epidemic there is an irrefutable feminisation of HIV.
Nazneen Damji at the XVII International AIDS Conference. Credit: Zofeen Ebrahim/IPS
On the sidelines of the XVII International AIDS Conference being held here, Naz…
Stephanie Nieuwoudt
CAPE TOWN, Sep 25 2008 (IPS) – Zulu artists working at the Ardmore Ceramic Studio in South Africa s coastal province of KwaZulu Natal have gone from poverty to international acclaim.
Ceramic artist Mickey Chonco with one of the artworks he created at the Ardmore Ceramic Studio in KwaZulu-Natal. Credit: Ardmore Ceramic Studio
Some of them have exhibited …
Miriam Mannak
CAPE TOWN, Nov 15 2008 (IPS) – Of the 490,000 women worldwide who are diagnosed with cervical cancer each year, 80 percent live in the developing world. Every year, 55,000 women in sub-Saharan Africa alone develop this disease, which is ten times more likely to affect women living with HIV.
Before the era of ARVs, we didn t see these women because they died from AIDS-related illnesses, said Linda Gail-Bekker, of the Institute of Infectious Disease and Molecular Medicine at the Desmond Tutu HIV Centre in Cape Town, South Africa. Today we see more and more women who are HIV positive and have the other disease.
According to Gail-Bekker, the compromised immune systems of people living with HIV make their bodies more receptive to the human papillomavirus (H…
Mohammed Omer*
AMSTERDAM, Jan 9 2009 (IPS) – On the phone from Gaza, Zahrah Salem shares the news she has just seen, that so many at the White House were deeply saddened by the death of the cat India Willie. Why, she asks, is nobody at the White House deeply saddened by the death of so many children in Gaza.
After a pause she says, At least the cat did not die hungry, like the children in Gaza.
Zahrah Salem, 64, has four children and 15 grandchildren to worry about. Day after day of bombing brings blessing they are still there. We all sleep in one room, she says. So if we die, we die together. What if we die and the children don t, we don t want to leave them behind to suffer.
These days the injuries suffered by this IPS correspondent at the hands of the Isr…
Julio Godoy
BERLIN, Feb 24 2009 (IPS) – Quickly after the idyllic scenes presented in the film, the story changes. The group of vigorous young men are home, greeted at the airport with flowers, hugs, kisses by loved ones and girlfriends. And then you find that the main character of the film Willkommen zu hause ( Welcome Home ) is suffering from post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
The soldier is shown to have survived an attack by Taliban militias in Afghanistan, and now he cannot forget the bloody scenes he witnessed. But his story is not fictional. PTSD has been a real life problem among thousands of soldiers all over the world, and among many German soldiers returning home from Afghanistan.
The day Welcome home was broadcast, Feb. 3, the German ministry of defenc…
Kristin Palitza
DURBAN, Mar 31 2009 (IPS) – The money to scale up HIV treatment is there, but implementation of programmes to curb the pandemic is a problem, health experts said at the opening of the Fourth South African AIDS Conference in Durban.
Health scientists, activists, health workers and politicians from 52 countries have come together to discuss latest strategies to fight the pandemic under the theme Scale Up for Success .
Dr John Hargrove, director of SACEMA, the centre for epidemiological modelling and analysis of the South African Department of Science and Technology and the National Research Foundation, recommended safe medical male circumcision and antiretroviral (ARV) treatment as key strategies to prevent the spread of HIV.
Male circumcision ha…
Emilio Godoy
MEXICO CITY, Apr 30 2009 (IPS) – Esther de Anda has stopped eating pork since the appearance of swine flu in Mexico. They say there s no problem in eating it, but for now I prefer fish or chicken, the homemaker told IPS.
Her response was typical of many consumers in Mexico, where the pork industry has come under scrutiny since the outbreak of the flu epidemic on Apr. 24, which so far has officially infected 97 people and killed seven in Mexico, although some 1,300 patients are under observation.
Mexico s Secretary of Agriculture Alberto Cárdenas gave assurances that consumers can safely eat pork, which does not transmit the virus.
Nevertheless, China, Ukraine, Russia and other countries have banned imports of pork from Mexico and parts of the Uni…
Renu Kshetry
KATHMANDU, May 29 2009 (IPS) – At the annual military parade of the People s Liberation Army, Nepal s ex-guerrillas, curious bystanders saw a young woman clad in military fatigues kiss and cuddle a baby before handing her back to an older woman.
PLA soldiers Sujata (left) and Kabita …