Julio Godoy
HEILIGENDAMM, Germany, Jun 8 2007 (IPS) – The Group of Eight industrialised countries (G8) agreed to allocate 60 billion dollars in new aid to Africa in the coming years , to beef up the fight against HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, and to improve primary education across the continent.
G8 working session with Africa representatives. Credit: Federal Government of Germany
But the summit of the heads of government of the G8 (Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan,…
Aaron Glantz*
OAKLAND, California, Nov 17 2008 (IPS) – Thirty-three-year-old Walter Williams was among the thousands of revelers who flooded into the streets of Oakland on Nov. 4 to celebrate Barack Obama s election as the 44th president of the United States.
Williams, a U.S. Army veteran who served tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan, initially had trouble coping with his return from the war zone. He did drugs and slept in his car and the homes of his friends, before stabilising himself and landing a job at the San Francisco non-profit Swords to Plowshares, where he helps other veterans find work.
On election night, Williams told IPS he had sworn off participating in the electoral process after the lies I saw in the desert , but became excited about Obama s campaign a…
Mohamed Fofanah
FREETOWN, Apr 1 2010 (IPS) – Lying forgotten in the bush somewhere is a sign declaring Ogoo Farm is an open defecation-free community.
This peri-urban community of roughly 3000 people was one of the villages where UNICEF and the Sierra Leone ministry of health implemented the pilot phase of a Community-Led Total Sanitation Programme in 2008.
The programme trains communities on the dangers of open defecation which contaminates streams and other water sources and mobilises action to end the practice.
According to the latest UNICEF and World Health Organization data, only 11 percent of people in Sierra Leone have access to adequate sanitation facilities; in the rural areas it is just five percent. Only about half of the population and less than a…
FREETOWN, Apr 30 2010 (IPS) – A woman alone: Josephine Bangali fetches water from the well to set to boil over a wood fire so she can sterilise her instruments.
At a government hospital in Makeni, Sierra Leone. Credit: Nancy Palus/IRIN
The clinic is built of mud. In one of its three rooms stands a rickety bed where she can admit in-patients; it is also the room where Bangali delivers babies. She relies on a kerosene lamp at night supplemented with a torch when she can afford batteries.
The underlying causes of mat…
Stephen Leahy
VIENNA, Jun 27 2011 (IPS) – Like our cave-dwelling ancestors of 200,000 years ago, nearly three billion people still use fire for cooking and heating. Of those, some 1.5 billion people have no access to electricity. For a billion more, their only access is to sporadic and unreliable electricity networks.
Now an is being launched by the United Nations to bring electricity to everyone on the planet by 2030.
Energy is the issue for the next decade, said Kandeh Yumkella, director-general of the (UNIDO).
Achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is impossible without energy, Yumkella said at the opening of the last week.
The MDGs include reducing by half the proportion of people living in poverty by 2015, and ensuring environmenta…
Soumaila T. Diarra
BAMAKO, Aug 2 2011 (IPS) – Tuberculosis remains a leading cause of death in Mali despite the availability of free treatment. The resurgence of the illness, linked to poverty and HIV infection, could be reduced by changing behaviour, doctors say.
I know people who have died of tuberculosis, Ramata Guindo told IPS.
In this market, a vendor of kitchen utensils died of it last year. He didn t go to a health centre in time. When they discovered what was wrong with him, it was too late, says the vegetable vendor at Bamako s Lafiabougou market.
This teeming market of hastily-constructed wooden sheds perfectly illustrates the overcrowding that supports the transmission of contagious diseases like TB. Between the merchants stalls, shoppers trample …
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 …
Patients at a chemotherapy session in the Civil Hospital in the province of Cienfuegos, Cuba. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS
HAVANA, Nov 12 2013 (IPS) – The meagre budgets of Cuban families are put to the test when one of the members is diagnosed with cancer. Although treatment is free of cost, only extended networks of support help alleviate the economic impact of the disease, which is now the number one cause of death.
“The most expensive thing is the diet. We have to buy fruit, vegetables, chicken and fish, which are costly and hard to get,” said Adolfo (not his real name), who changed jobs four times in his efforts to help his wife through her 11-year battle w…
Parched olive groves in northern Croatia, where West Nile Virus has already claimed one victim this year. West Nile Virus infections have sharply increased in Europe this year, the World Health Organisation says, largely due to a longer transmission season in the region which this year saw high temperatures and extended rainy spells followed by dry weather, helping mosquito breeding and propagation. Credit: Ed Holt/IPS
VIENNA, Sep 13 2018 (IPS) – Climate change and health experts are warning of the growing threat to public health in Europe from global warming as rising temperatures help potentially lethal diseases spread easily across the continent.
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