Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 9 2006 (IPS) – The United States, a major funder of the United Nations and its myriad agencies, has a longstanding notoriety for exercising its financial clout to threaten U.N. bodies refusing to play ball with Washington.
Back in 1984, it withdrew from the Paris-based U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), citing disagreement over its management, and also opposing a proposed plan for the creation of a new international information order.

The withdrawal resulted in a substantive 25 percent U.S. cut in UNESCO s annual 180-million-dollar budget. But despite the sharp cut, UNESCO continued to survive minus the United States. In 2003, however, Washington returned to the fold, arguing it could live with the then new…

Moyiga Nduru

JOHANNESBURG, Feb 16 2006 (IPS) – Johannesburg is the financial heart of South Africa, and for those who gain a share of the city s wealth, affluent homes await.
Far less fortunate is Johannesburg s homeless population, variously put at between 500,000 to 800,000 people. In all, there are some 3.2 million people in the city, according to official figures.

The number (of homeless persons) is very dodgy; there are no official statistics. The homeless move about a lot, so it s difficult to keep record, Ndai Mncedisi, director of the Johannesburg-based Paballo ya Batho, a homeless outreach programme administered by the Methodist Church, told IPS. (Paballo ya Batho is a Sotho name which translates as Caring for the People .)

Those without homes still …

Catherine Sasman

WINDHOEK, Mar 20 2006 (IPS) – The sight of an elderly person caring for children with AIDS-related illnesses and grandchildren who may have been orphaned by the pandemic has become a common one in Namibia, and the Southern African region as a whole.
According to the 2004 Common Country Assessment prepared for Namibia under the auspices of the United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF), grandparents provide care for most orphans under the age of 18 who live in rural areas. These children accounted for up to 75 percent of the 156,000 children orphaned at the time of the assessment. (UNDAF enables U.N. agencies to plan development programmes for individual countries; the framework also allows for cooperation between the U.N. system, governments and …

Haider Rizvi

UNITED NATIONS, Apr 19 2006 (IPS) – Concerned about the enormous risks that nuclear technology poses to the environment and the questionable role it has played in heightening political conflicts, some leading European politicians are suggesting that the time has come for the United Nations to stop promoting nuclear technology as an effective tool to meet the world s growing energy demands.
Key European leaders who once served their countries as environment ministers are urging U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to reform the mandate of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which they consider to be outdated and conflicting .

The task of nuclear arms proliferation seems to be growing rapidly, said Satu Hassi, a member of the European Parliament an…

William Fisher

NEW YORK, May 24 2006 (IPS) – Two weeks from now, a South Carolina pain management physician will surrender at the Talladega, Alabama prison to begin serving a two-and-a-half-year sentence for drug trafficking, racketeering and money laundering.
Dr. Michael Jackson is one of hundreds of pain management specialists arrested, charged and jailed by federal and state authorities for violating the Controlled Substances Act, designed to limit the dispensing of illegal prescription drugs by doctors and their use by patients.

Meanwhile, the high profile right-wing radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh, charged with doctor shopping for prescription medication for chronic back pain, reached a settlement with the Florida state attorney, under which the charges will b…

Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Jun 27 2006 (IPS) – Global opium production, particularly in Southeast Asia, fell during 2005, while cocaine production was broadly unchanged compared to 2004, according to the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), which released its 2006 World Drug Report here Monday.
The two-volume report, which singled out efforts by Laos to stamp out opium production for special praise, warned that cocaine consumption in Western Europe has reached alarming levels . It also featured a special section suggesting that the world s most popular illicit drug, cannibis, may be more dangerous than previously believed.

What progress in drug control has been made could be easily reversed, particularly if farmers in major opium- or coca-growing areas are not provided d…

Stephen Leahy

BROOKLIN, Canada, Aug 9 2006 (IPS) – The world s largest gathering of HIV/AIDS experts and activists will meet in Toronto starting on Sunday with renewed hopes of halting the spread of this devastating disease, which an estimated 40 million people are currently living with.
Their hope arises from better treatment and prevention programmes, huge increases in funding, and data released earlier this year that the global proportion of people infected with HIV is thought to have peaked in the late 1990s and to have stabilised today, according to UNAIDS.

And so the mood of the more than 24,000 delegates to the six-day International AIDS Conference, which starts Aug. 13, may well be one of cautious optimism.

This is one of the conferences that is going…

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Sep 12 2006 (IPS) – It is called the poor man s drug and its use soared during Argentina s economic crisis of 2002. But while cocaine sulfate, a cheap drug known here as pasta base, is literally destroying young people in the slums of this South American country, it also has its middle-class and adult users.
Victoria Rangugni, a social worker with the Intercambios Civil Association for the Study of and Attention to Drug-Related Problems, told IPS that middle-class youngsters and adults tend to use pasta base in a less visible manner and with greater self-control, reducing the health damages.

Her conclusions were based on a study she coordinated on the consumption of pasta base among middle-income users in Argentina, presented late last mo…

• เปิดตัวซิมูลาครัมลิมิเต็ดคนที่ 2  ‘เรย์’ และ อาวุธคู่ใจธนู ‘ไถ่บาป’ สาวผมฟ้าเป็นประกายผู้ขับหุ่น EVA-00
• พบกับเนื้อเรื่องและคอนเท้นท์พิเศษจากคอลแลปอนิเมะชื่อก้องโลก Evangelion ในอีเวนต์ ‘Evangelion Fantasy’
• กิจกรรมแจกฟรี! ชุดคอลแลป ‘โจมตีแฟนตาซี’ และ หุ่นยนต์รับใช้สุดลิมิตเต็ด ห้ามพลาด!

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