Zack Baddorf*
LONDON, Feb 18 2010 (IPS) – A new documentary Diary of a Disgraced Soldier follows the dismissal from the British army of an Iraq war veteran and his battle with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) linked to his videographing the brutalising of Iraqi youth by fellow servicemen.
Disgraced Soldier. Credit: Martin Webster
For five days in 2004, Corporal Martin Webster and about 100 other British soldiers from the 1st Battalion, Light Infantry, were under siege by thousands of rioting Iraqis in the streets of Al Amara, Iraq. While some Iraqis threw stones, others fired rock…
Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 22 2010 (IPS) – At the United Nations, water and sanitation have remained inseparable twins on the world body s social and economic agenda.
Still, and despite the General Assembly s declaration of 2008 as the International Year of Sanitation, water gets higher political priority than toilets.
Simply put, Serena O Sullivan of the London-based End Water Poverty told IPS bluntly, nobody wants to talk about s t.
And that includes politicians and U.N. diplomats, which is dangerous , she complains.
As the world commemorated World Water Day on Monday, the U.N. s Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro said 2.6 billion people worldwide still lack adequate sanitation.
Seven out of 10 people without improved sanitation…
Isaiah Esipisu
LUBUMBASHI, Apr 26 2010 (IPS) – Eight faith-based organisations have set up a pilot project in the Democratic Republic of Congo to support the fight against malaria.
<img title="Drug-resistant parasites are rendering traditional drugs ineffective.
Drug-resistant parasites are rendering traditional drugs ineffective. Credit: John Robinson/IPS
The initiative, dubbed the Coalition of Religious Organisations for Health (CORESA, after its French acronym) will receive some money from the Global Fund for HIV/AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis, as well as raise money independently for malaria prevention.
CORESA will see Catholics, Methodists, and Anglicans; Seventh Day Adventists, Apostolics and members of the DRC s Kimbanguiste Church, as well as t…
Marwaan Macan-Markar
BANGKOK, Jun 4 2010 (IPS) – As it took root in the rice fields across Asia, it was hailed as the solution to the hunger afflicting millions of people in the region. But four decades on, the much vaunted Green Revolution appears to have reached its limits, unable to meet new demands, to feed new mouths.
United Nations food experts are increasingly touting the region s chronic hunger figures for 2009 to confirm this reality. Last year saw the proportion of people in the grip of chronic hunger hit 17 to 18 percent in the Asia- Pacific region, up from 16 percent in 2006.
It was the first time that the number of the hungry had risen since the Green Revolution spurred a downward trend. The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) warned this week of a ch…
Zofeen Ebrahim
KARACHI, Pakistan, Jul 6 2010 (IPS) – While militancy, power outages and skyrocketing food prices hog the limelight in parliamentary and media discussions in Pakistan, health experts warn that it is a neglected issue the population bulge that will prove to be a more insidious problem.
Pakistan s population policy is still waiting final approval. Credit: Fahim Siddiqi/IPS
Population is the denominator for everything , says Sania Nishtar, president of Heartfile, a think tank conside…
Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 28 2010 (IPS) – When the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) back in December 1948, 58 member states voted for a historic document covering political, economic, social and cultural rights.
A young girl in Côte d Ivoire fills a family water clay pot…
Evelyn Matsamura Kiapi
KAMPALA, Aug 26 2010 (IPS) – Health rights activists still insist that, despite some improvements to Uganda s controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Bill, it will affect the availability of generic medicine if enacted in present form.
The bill has been improved with regard to the functions of different enforcement agencies. In the first draft there was confusion about the roles of various agencies.
The first draft of the bill gave the Uganda National Bureau of Standards (UNBS) the mandate to seize and detain suspected counterfeit goods, a function already fulfilled by the Uganda National Drug Authority (NDA).
The NDA was established under the National Drug Policy and Authority Act of 1993 with a mandate to safeguard the appropriate use of dru…
JOHANNESBURG, Sep 17 2010 (IPS) – With five years left till the Millennium Development Goals 2015 deadline, civil society groups say South Africa has made progress on some goals but regressed on others.
Pal Mfunzana is one of millions of South Africans with reasons to be sceptical of the govt s claims it will meet all 8 MDGs on schedule Credit: Chris Stein/IPS
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Dingaan Mithi
LILONGWE, Oct 11 2010 (IPS) – For HIV-positive Tereza Chatsilizika, the monthly cash grant of 10 dollars she receives means that she can educate her disabled daughters and put food on the table.
Chatsilizika lost her husband in 2000 to an HIV-related illness, only to be diagnosed with HIV a few years later. Since then she has struggled to look after her two daughters, Aida, 14, and Eneless 12. Both girls are suspected of having contracted polio and as a result cannot walk. And because of her ill health, Chatsilizika was unable to work and support her family.
Both of my children were not able to go to school and there was very little food on the plate, says Chatsilizika of life before receiving the grant. But when a social cash transfer programme was pil…
Christi van der Westhuizen
ACCRA, Nov 12 2010 (IPS) – The resurgence in religious fundamentalism and the inordinate influence of certain church leaders over public health policy present major obstacles to the prevention of needless deaths and injuries of women from unsafe abortion on the African continent.
The growth of evangelical religion is reflected in ubiquitious religious imagery and texts. Credit: Christi va…