Poor Thirst as Nile Taps Run Dry
Cam McGrath* – IPS/IFEJ
CAIRO, Sep 6 2010 (IPS) – The midday sun punishes a group of veiled women as they wait in line to fill their buckets and jerrycans. They have travelled on foot to a rusty tap on the outskirts of Cairo that gushes irrigation water never intended for human consumption.
Carrying drinking water in a low-income Cairo district. Credit: Victoria Hazou
We ll boil it when we get home, says one woman, positioning a blue jerrycan on her head.
Water shortages, aggravated by intense summer heat…
US-GUATEMALA: Shocking Experiments Highlight Lack of Controls
Danilo Valladares and Amanda Wilson*
GUATEMALA CITY/WASHINGTON DC, Sep 9 2011 (IPS) – The appalling experiments carried out by U.S. doctors in Guatemala from 1946 to 1948 using 1,300 human subjects who were infected with sexually transmitted diseases highlighted the inadequacy of controls and safeguards in clinical testing in this Central American country still a major problem today, according to experts.
The trained human resources are not in place for oversight of research, and the standards and regulations are either flawed or are not met, Dr. Luis López, a member of the , which was tasked by President Barack Obama to investigate the case, told IPS.
In Guatemala, medical research is regulated by a 2007 Health Ministry agreement on standards for the regulation of …
U.S.-Dependent Pacific Island Defies Nuke Powers
A Patriot interceptor missile is launched from Omelek Island Oct. 25, 2012 during a U.S. Missile Defense Agency integrated flight test. Credit: U.S. Navy
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 25 2014 (IPS) – The tiny Pacific nation state of Marshall Islands which depends heavily on the United States for its economic survival, uses the U.S. dollar as its currency and predictably votes with Washington on all controversial political issues at the United Nations is challenging the world s nuclear powers before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague.
The lawsuit, filed Thursday, is being described as a potential battle between a puny David and a mighty Goliath: a c…
Bougainville Voices Say ‘No’ to Mining
Indigenous communities continue to live around the edge of the Panguna copper mine in Bougainville, Papua New Guinea, which was forced to shut down in 1989. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS
SYDNEY, Oct 28 2014 (IPS) – The viability of reopening the controversial Panguna copper mine in the remote mountains of Central Bougainville, an autonomous region in the east of Papua New Guinea, has been the focus of discussions led by local political leaders and foreign mining interests over the past four years.
But a report by an Australian non-government organisation warns that the wounds left on local communities by the corporate mining project, “the environmental …