DEVELOPMENT-MOZAMBIQUE: Explosions End But Trauma Continues
Ruth Ansah Ayisi
MAPUTO, Mar 30 2007 (IPS) – Six hours of terrifying explosions and projectiles flying everywhere, killing people indiscriminately, are over but the fear and the trauma live on.
Credit: Ruth Ansah Ayisi
A week ago, a depot storing armaments exploded in the middle of 14 densely populated poor neighbourhoods in the Mozambican capital of Maputo. Explosions went on for several hours with bullets and rockets blasting off in all directions.
Currently over 100 people are confirmed dead and about 500 injured, many of them serious and requiring amputations. Nobody escaped the impact. Maputo residents at least …
PERU: Blood and Gold on Algamarca Hill
Milagros Salazar
ALGAMARCA, Peru, May 7 2007 (IPS) – While two companies are disputing a hill rich in gold in the extreme northwest of Peru, more than 3,000 informal sector miners are working there without the most basic safety or environmental protection measures.
Miners on Algamarca hill Credit: Office of the President of Peru.
The hillside is dotted with the blue, yellow and red plastic roofs of the miners tents and shacks. The miners settlement on Algamarca hill is a 15-minute drive from the village of the same name, home to 200 famil…
BOLIVIA: Safe Abortion Nearly Impossible Even in Cases of Rape
Bernarda Claure
LA PAZ, Jun 8 2007 (IPS) – Bolivia s constituent assembly has just two months left to finishing rewriting the country s constitution. In 10 months of sessions, it has approved a single article, regarding the right to hold football matches at high altitudes, in response to the International Football Federation s (FIFA) ban on high-altitude international matches.
Among the thorny issues being debated by the 255 assembly members, 134 of whom belong to the leftwing governing Movement Towards Socialism (MAS), is the question of the right to life, linked to the subject of the legalisation of abortion.
A proposal set forth by the assembly s Committee on Rights, Duties and Guarantees to enshrine the right to life from conception in the new constitution has tri…
ENVIRONMENT-INDIA: Dow Unable to Shake Off Bhopal Legacy
Praful Bidwai
NEW DELHI, Jul 8 2007 (IPS) – Try as it might Dow Chemical Company is unable to shake off the criminal liability it inherited for the 1984 Bhopal gas disaster and also responsibility to clean up toxic contamination at the site of the pesticides plant, originally owned and operated by Union Carbide Corporation.
Since 2001 Dow has fully owned Union Carbide and legally taken over its liabilities, including culpability for the world s worst industrial accident which killed over 3,000 people within the first week and inflicted enormous chemical damage upon more than 200,000 others. The injuries led to a further 15,000 deaths and terrible suffering among the survivors.
To make matters worse for Dow, voluntary agencies working on behalf of the survivors have tu…
PERU: Pollution Emergency Plan Instead of Real Action for La Oroya
Milagros Salazar* – Tierramérica
LIMA, Aug 10 2007 (IPS) – Far from halting the source that is poisoning the Andean city of La Oroya, which is home to the Doe Run smelting complex, the Peruvian government ordered a contingency plan for the days when air pollution is worst, as if it were dealing with a natural disaster.
The toxic air of La Oroya is a time bomb for the city's children. Credit: Courtesy of Peru…
ENVIRONMENT: Critics Weigh In as IFC Tightens Mining Rules
Abid Aslam
WASHINGTON, Sep 10 2007 (IPS) – The International Finance Corporation (IFC) faces pointed criticism in coming days as an effort to lessen the damage wrought by large mining projects enters a new phase.
Mining pollution in the Philippines Credit: IUCN/CEESP
At issue are updates and enhancements to environmental, health, and social guidelines from the World Bank s private sector arm. Green groups and international charities say the proposed changes lack adequate standards in critical areas such as water contamination and the disposal of toxic …
FINANCE: Critics Press IMF on Social Spending
Abid Aslam
WASHINGTON, Oct 4 2007 (IPS) – When Dominique Strauss-Kahn takes over as head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) next month, he will confront demands for the agency to more actively support health and education spending in the world s poorest countries.
Strauss-Kahn has pledged to revitalise the fund s development efforts as IMF managing director.
Africa Action and 100-plus other pressure groups, in a letter to the former socialist finance minister from France, demand decisive action within the first 100 days of his five-year term, due to start Nov. 1.
If Mr. Strauss-Khan is serious about IMF reform, these issues must be at the top of his agenda, said Marie Clarke Brill, interim executive director at Washington-based Africa Action.
Th…
SOUTH ASIA: Youth Demand Sex Education in Schools
Zofeen Ebrahim
HYDERABAD, India, Oct 31 2007 (IPS) – Sahinaz Khatun, who is preparing for her school finals in a village in West Bengal state, has for the last two years kept condoms (and birth control pills) at her home and thinks nothing of discussing subjects like menstruation hygiene and masturbation with other adolescents.
Khatun is among the 200 young people attending the 4th Asia Pacific Conference on Reproductive and Sexual Health and Rights (APCRSH) demanding the right to sex education.
Talking about sexual and reproductive health (SRH) is not going to make us errant or licentious, she said, adding that there are people in her community who still feel this is not the right thing for a young unmarried woman to be doing. In some ways they are right, she says. …
HEALTH-VIETNAM: Bird Flu Fighters Have Ducks in Their Sights
Marwaan Macan-Markar
BANGKOK, Nov 30 2007 (IPS) – As the temperature drops and another cool season approaches, attention is turning to Vietnam s duck population, suspected to have become vulnerable to the deadly avian influenza (AI) virus.
The deaths of large numbers of free-range ducks through November appears to confirm the view that they are no more silent carriers of the H5N1 virus, as was thought to be the case after the current outbreak of AI began in the winter of 2003. In the Cao Bang province, in the northern mountains of the country, 60 ducks from a flock of 82, and 12 chickens from a flock of 17, died over a five-day period, this month.
Free range ducks didn t show signs of the virus unlike chickens, which were getting infected and dying, says Jeffery Gilb…
HEALTH-BRAZIL: Yellow Fever – Epidemic or False Alarm?
Fabiana Frayssinet
RIO DE JANEIRO, Jan 14 2008 (IPS) – The Brazilian Health Ministry is fighting a war on two fronts. It is taking measures to prevent an outbreak of sylvatic (or jungle) yellow fever while countering speculation in the press about an imminent epidemic of the disease. There have been no cases of urban yellow fever in the country since 1942.
In all, 24 cases of yellow fever have been reported to the ministry since December. Two have been confirmed by laboratory tests, and five have been ruled out, leaving 17 suspected cases, according to the Health Ministry.
In the first two weeks of 2008, three patients have died. One of the victims was confirmed to have contracted yellow fever, and the others are suspected to have died of the illness on the basis of c…