Simple solutions can make an enormous difference in accessibility. Credit: Dominik Golenia/CC By 2.0
WASHINGTON, Dec 2 2011 (IPS) – As the International Day for Persons with Disabilities approaches this Saturday, one institution is working to remove some of the barriers that prevent disabled people from taking a leading role in policies that affect their lives.
BRUSSELS, Feb 5 2012 (IPS) – Dozens of European Union-funded projects across several countries are ‘environmentally or socially unsound’, according to a map created by a joint effort between CEE Bankwatch Network and Friends of the Earth Europe.
Released Feb. 2, the counted 33 ventures backed by the EU s either projects already funded or under consideration for funding totalling 16 billion euros.
The map highlighted projects in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Macedonia, Poland and Slovakia, which have been found to be particularly damaging to local biodiversity, to the future possibility of sustainable efforts and to human communities.
Twelve of the 33 projects studied were found in the Czech Republic, the highest number of harmful projects in …
Rousbeh Legatis interviews ERAMITHE DELVA, co-founder of KOFAVIV
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 10 2012 (IPS) – In Haitian refugee camps, women are still crammed under plastic or cloth tarps that provide no security and quickly become overheated by the sun. Sexual abuse, harassment, assault and rape run rampant, even as political responses to these dangers have stalled. But KOFAVIV, a women s organisation founded by and for rape survivors, offers a glimmer of hope.
Marchers, who had been accompanied through Richmond streets by a pink-clad brass band, were welcomed with street theatre, more speeches and music. Credit: Judith Scherr/IPS
RICHMOND, California, Apr 23 2012 (IPS) – This year, Earth Day in Richmond, California was more than planting organic gardens or exploring solar panels.
Occupy Richmond and a coalition of progressive allies turned Apr. 20 into Occupy Earth Day, and took aim at Chevron, one of the world s wealthiest corporations. The corporate giant that turne…
An estimated 162,000 women and girls will be buried in Africa by the end of this year. They could easily be saved if they received essential maternity services. Credit: Bonnie Allen/IPS
NAIROBI, May 25 2012 (IPS) – Three years ago, the African Union began a continent-wide campaign to reduce the number of women who die when pregnant or giving birth.
Called the Campaign for Accelerated Reduction of Maternal Mortality in Africa, its slogan is Africa cares: no woman should die while giving life. This was widely welcomed as many African societies give motherhood special status.
The sad truth, though, is that giving life is a leading cause of death of …
Population pressure in Pakistan. Credit: M. Fahim Siddiqi/IPS
KARACHI, Pakistan, Jul 11 2012 (IPS) – “No scalpel, no stitch and no rest needed,” guarantees Dr. Ghulam Shabbir Sudhayao, referring to the surgical procedure called vasectomy the least popular method of birth control around the world, including Pakistan.
“People confuse vasectomy with castration (surgical removal of the testicles) and that scares them away,” Sudhayao, who works for the government’s population welfare department, tells IPS.
Vasectomy involves a minor procedure to snip the sperm ducts. Sudhayao himself resorted to the method when he decided that his family was compl…
MANAGUA, Aug 31 2012 (IPS) – Luisa Gutiérrez, 65, dances a frenzied mambo on an unusual dance floor: a street in the Nicaraguan capital. Dozens of cars line up behind her, honking their horns impatiently, while she, surrounded by elderly people with canes, walkers and protest signs, dances to demand a government pension.
The street dance performed by Gutiérrez, a former employee of a privately-owned footwear company that has since closed, is one of the diverse forms of protest staged by 20,000 retired workers who have come together in the non-governmental Older Adult Unit (UNAM).
The demonstrations will be stepped up in September, on the fifth anniversary of the start of the continuous protests.
UNAM is demanding the reinstatement of an old law requiring that t…
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon (centre) speaks with a tuberculosis (TB) patient during his visit to the Institute of Respiratory Medicine in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Credit: UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe
WASHINGTON, Oct 17 2012 (IPS) – The next several years could see either the elimination of tuberculosis in some regions or millions of otherwise preventable deaths, according to released in Washington Wednesday by the World health Organisation (WHO).
The outcome, experts are warning, rests on a three-billion-dollar gap in funding needed to fully address TB next year as well to ensure the proper introduction of new drugs.
“On the one hand we have existing as well as n…
Charles Kayongo, a Ugandan bar owner, and his wife Eunice, have defied traditional beliefs and refuse to have more than two children. Credit: Dennis Kasirye/IPS
KAMPALA, Nov 15 2012 (IPS) – Charles Kayongo of Uganda is a father of two girls aged five and three. And even though age-old traditions among his ethnic group, the Baganda, say a man should have an unlimited number of children and a son as an heir, Kayongo refuses to have more children.
Like a growing number of cash-strapped young parents in this landlocked East African nation who yearn for a modern lifestyle, he says that he and his wife, Eunice Kayongo, want a small family.
“Enough is enough. I do not…
WASHINGTON, Jan 9 2013 (IPS) – U.S. citizens suffer from poorer health than nearly all other industrialised countries, according to the first comprehensive government analysis on the subject, released Wednesday.
Of 17 high-income countries looked at by a committee of experts sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, the United States is at or near the bottom in at least nine indicators.
These include infant mortality, heart and lung disease, sexually transmitted infections, and adolescent pregnancies, as well as more systemic issues such as injuries, homicides, and rates of disability.
Together, such issues place U.S. males at the very bottom of the list, among those countries, for life expectancy; on average, a U.S. male can be expected to live almost four…