Family members wait near a house buried by the landslide as rescue workers look for survivors. Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS
ARANAYAKE, Sri Lanka, Jun 2 2016 (IPS) – The picture could be straight out of a tourist postcard – a sleepy green mountain with misty clouds floating above the canopy – if not for one fatal flaw: the ugly gash running right through the middle.
This is the Egalpitiya mountain in Aranayake about 120 kms from the capital Colombo. Parts of the mountain came down during the evening of May 17, burying three villages. Offi…
Jul 5 2016 – PARIS, AFP When Dolly the cloned sheep was born 20 years ago on July 5, many hailed mankind s new-found mastery over DNA as a harbinger of medical miracles such as lab-grown transplant organs.
Others trembled at the portent of a “Brave New World” of identical humans farmed for spare parts or as cannon fodder.
As it turns out, neither came to pass.
Human cloning complicated, risky and ethically contentious has largely been replaced as the holy grail of regenerative medicine by other technologies, say experts.
“It has not lived (up) to the hype,” said Rosario Isasi of the University of Miami s Institute for Bioethics and Health Policy.
“It was like a eureka moment: that we will finally be able to understand more (about) th…
is the UN Resident Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative in Kenya.
The President meets Mrs Jumwa Kabibu who after 50 years of misery underwent a successful UN supported fistula surgery. Photo Credit: Newton/UNIC
NAIROBI, Kenya, Nov 16 2016 (IPS) – President Uhuru Kenyatta warmly welcomed dozens of U.N Agencies, development partners and senior Government officials to the State House on 02 November 2016 to discuss the joint development plan from 2014 – 2018.
He is perhaps the only head of state in Africa to take on this responsibility personally and believes in the transformational power of the Government-UN partnership to address national priorities for sus…
Girls walk across an embankment in the Satkhira district of Bangladesh. Credit: Rafiqul Islam/IPS
DHAKA, Mar 23 2017 (IPS) – Breaking taboos surrounding menstruation, a project to distribute sanitary napkins to girls in one district of Bangladesh has had a positive impact on school dropout rates – and should be replicated in other parts of the country, experts say.
“In Bangladesh, girls neither get enough support from their families nor their teachers in school during this difficult time, and their problems intensify and multiply as they cannot share anything out of sham…
ROME, Jun 5 2017 (IPS) – Now that president Donald Trump has announced the withdrawal of the world’s largest polluter in history—the United States, from the Paris Accord, perhaps one of the most specific warnings is what a United Nations independent expert on rights and the environment has just said: “We should be fully aware that we cannot enjoy our basic human rights without a healthy environment.”
Speaking in Geneva ahead of the on Monday 5 June, the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and the Environment, John H. Knox, “We should all be alarmed at the accelerating loss of biodiversity on which healthy ecosystems depend.”
We depend on health…
Mariam Wallet Aboubakrine is Chairperson of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, Albert K. Barume is chairman of the UN Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and Victoria Tauli-Corpuz is the Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples
Women from Nepal’s indigenous tribe. Credit: Mallika Aryal/IPS
GENEVA / NEW YORK, Aug 7 2017 (IPS) – The world’s indigenous peoples still face huge challenges a decade after the adoption of an historic declaration on their rights, a group of United Nations experts and specialist bodies has warned. Speaking ahead of the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples on 9 August, the grou…
Heather Barr and Amanda Klasing are senior women’s rights researchers at Human Rights Watch.
Girls cover their faces to protect themselves from the stench of a filthy and malfunctioning restroom in their school. at this school, girls have no toilets of their own and their only option …
Laboratory Technician Herbert Mtopa collects biological samples at a clinic in Zimbabwe’s Shamva District under a CultiAF project to assess exposure of women and children to aflatoxins. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS
NAIROBI, Kenya, Feb 22 2018 (IPS) – In the absence of concerted efforts to raise awareness on the dangers of aflatoxin to humans and domestic animals, advances in technology for early detection of aflatoxin in cereals and seeds such as maize will come to naught,…
IOM, WHO, DR Congo Ministry of Health Partner to Stop Ebola from Spreading to Kinshasa, Neighbouring
There are concerns that Ebola could spread more widely without proper health screenings at Congo River ports. Photo: IOM
KINSHASA, May 25 2018 – Last week, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), cases of Ebola were confirmed in Mbandaka, a city with a population of 1.2 million people some 150 kilometres from where the outbreak originated in Bikoro Health Zone, Equateur Province.
The fact that Mbandaka is connected by river routes to DRC’s capital Kinshasa as well as cities in the Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic, has fuelled concerns that the disease could spread more widely.
In order to mitigate this risk, IOM, the UN Migration Agency, the DRC…
This article is part of a series of stories on Disability inclusion.
Women with disabilities in Afghanistan protest for their rights. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS.
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 13 2018 (IPS) – Children with disabilities are up to four times more likely to experience violence, with girls being the most at risk, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund.
“Children with disabilities are among the most marginalised groups in society. If society continues to see the disability before it sees the child, the risk of exclusion and discrimination remains,” Georgina Thompson, a media consultant for UNICEF, told IPS.
According to the…