Mantoe Phakathi
MBABANE, Jul 25 2011 (IPS) – Swaziland s economic crisis has affected its ability to provide healthcare as the country s buffer stock of antiretrovirals (ARVs) has fallen below the prescribed three-month supply.
And people living with HIV/AIDS are extremely concerned about what will happen to their treatment if the country cannot afford to purchase ARVs.
Led by the Swaziland National Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS (SWANNEPHA), civil society organisations took to the streets on Jul. 21 to demand that government ensure that there are enough ARVs in the country. The ministry of health is not (being) clear if people on antiretroviral treatment (ART) are assured the availability of ARVs, said SWANNEPHA vice-president Vusi Nxumalo as he delivered a p…
Thalif Deen
STOCKHOLM, Aug 26 2011 (IPS) – In the strife-stricken Middle East, oil has always been in the realm of politics. But in the Israeli-occupied territories of Gaza and the West Bank, oil has been supplanted by water.
Shaddad Attili, head of the Palestinian Water Authority, told IPS that the Palestinians have not only been deprived of water as a basic human right but that water is also being used as a weapon of war by the Israelis.
Water is a humanitarian issue. It should be taken out of politics, he said, pointing out that everyone in the region, including the Israelis, the Jordanians, the Lebanese and the Palestinians, should all be rightfully entitled to a basic human need.
Expressing strong feelings of anger and frustration, he said the deliberate…
Amanda Wilson*
WASHINGTON, Oct 11 2011 (IPS) – A new report on global hunger pinpoints factors at the heart of spikes in food prices it says are exacerbating the unfolding food crisis in the Horn of Africa.
Released ahead of World Food Day on Oct. 16, the report calls for action to control price volatility in the global food market and protect the world s poorest from the scourge of famine.
The (GHI), released Tuesday by The (IFPRI), , and , points to climate change, growing demand for biofuels, and increasing commodities futures trading in global food markets as the causes of price increases in food, which it says were also at the root of the food crisis of 2007-2008.
Price volatility refers to the relative rate at which the price for a commodity changes ov…
Correspondents* – IPS/Haiti Grassroots Watch
A young boy on one of his daily trips to fetch water. Credit: James Alexis/Haiti Grassroots Watch
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Nov 25 2011 (IPS) – Despite, or perhaps because of, a host of international actors, 2.5 million U.S. dollars in funding and five years of empty promises, residents of some of Port-au-Prince s poorest neighbourhoods have yet to see running water in their vicinity.
COLOMBO, Jan 25 2012 (IPS) – Experts agree that Sri Lanka s free pre and postnatal clinics across the island nation have helped bring infant mortality down to 15 per 1,000 live births and the under-five mortality rate to 21 per 1,000 live births.
Children living in Sri Lanka s tea estates are among the country s most malnourished. Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS
But, beneath that general picture of success lie pockets of vulnerability where poverty…
KUANTAN, Malyasia, Mar 5 2012 (IPS) – Malaysians protesting against an Australian-owned rare earth refinery, that will generate radioactive waste, are determined to agitate until the project is abandoned.
“It is time to shut down the Lynas plant,” said Wong Tack chairman of the Himpunan Hijau (Green Gathering Malay) or HHC that is leading a mass movement against the controversial refinery.
On Feb. 26, the HHC organised its biggest ever mass protest in this coastal town, capital of Pahang state, attracting 15,000 ordinary Malaysians as well as prominent public figures, including Anwar Ibrahim, leader of the opposition Pakatan Rayat coalition.
Wong Tack told IPS that if the government “continues to dither” the HHC would organise an even bigger prote…
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 16 2012 (IPS) – Water privatisation has been proven not to help the poor, yet a quarter of all World Bank funding goes directly to corporations and the private sector, bypassing both governments and its own standards and transparency requirements in order to do so, says a new report released Monday.
People in many developing countries often lack access to clean water, but the approach to remedy this problem has shifted in recent years to rely more on the private sector. Yet, as this new report and several other watchdog groups have shown, the change has been more harmful than helpful.
, the U.S.-based non-governmental organisation that published the report, has called on the World Bank to stop funding the private water sector and start redirecting its mo…
Aline Jenckel interviews JOVANA RIOS CISNERO, a member of the Asociación Panameña para el Planeamiento de la Familia (Panamanian Family Planning Association)
UNITED NATIONS, May 18 2012 (IPS) – In Latin American countries and in the Caribbean, where income disparities are among the greatest in the world, too many people often lack access to comprehensive health services and information needed to live healthy lives.
Jovana Ríos Cisnero promotes sexual and reproductive health and rights …
A number of people line up at the Kanungu Health Center IV, Uganda to access family planning facilities. Courtesy: Tadej Znidarcic/UNFPA
Kanungu, UGANDA , Jun 29 2012 (IPS) – It is midmorning at the Kanungu Health Centre IV and the queue of patients grows as more people start to arrive for treatment at this rural facility more than 400 kilometres outside the Ugandan capital of Kampala.
Most are here to access family planning services, while some are waiting for cancer screening.
Generally about 100 patients a day visit the health centre. But today there will be four times as many.
“We see an average of 400 people a day when the doctor from …
Marianela Jarroud interviews KATHY GERWIG and VERÓNICA ODRIOZOLA of Health Care Without Harm
Kathy Gerwig and Verónica Odriozola, with Health Care Without Harm. Credit: Marianela Jarroud/IPS
SANTIAGO, Aug 15 2012 (IPS) – Medical care is associated with images of cleanliness and good health. Today’s hospitals, however, are major sources of pollution and consume large amounts of valuable resources, like energy.
Often this pollution leads to illnesses which must be treated by the same hospitals that contributed to causing them, the co-director of Health Care Without Harm in the United States, Kathy Gerwig, told Tierramérica*.
The problem is that environmental …