South Africa s high HIV prevalence has been described as the biggest challenge facing the country since apartheid. In light of this, one would expect to be bombarded with Aids-prevention messages on radio, television, billboards and bus stops. Yet some say that not enough of these messages are available. The Khomanani:
JOHANNESBURG, Dec 15 (IPS) - South Africa s high HIV prevalence has been described as the biggest challenge facing the country since apartheid. In light of this, one would expect to be bombarded with AIDS prevention messages on radio, television, billboards and bus stops. Yet some say that not enough of these messages
JOHANNESBURG, Dec 11 (IPS) - Nombuso Mdluli, a home-based caregiver for people with AIDS, has a daily acquaintance with the suffering that HIV can inflict on its victims. For some reason, though, it is the plight of one particular man which haunts her. When I got to the room where he was lying in bed, I could sense he
GENEVA, Dec 7 (IPS) - A decision by the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to make a provisional 2003 agreement allowing poor countries to import affordable generic drugs permanent has drawn criticism from activists. The chair of the WTO General Council, Kenyan ambassador Amina Mohamed, celebrated Tuesday s decision, stres
WASHINGTON, Dec 5 (IPS) - Africa s strategic importance to the United States -- both with respect to Washington s war on terrorism and the growing competition with China for access to energy supplies and other raw materials -- should be given more attention by policy-makers and the public, according to a major new repo
MOSCOW, Dec 5 (IPS) - Svetlana Izambayeva won a beauty contest in Moscow last week. She was the only one who had turned up to participate, but it is not this that made her a winner like no other. It was a beauty contest organised for women who are HIV positive or who have AIDS. It may seem an absurd idea, and some may
MUMBAI/MADURAI, Dec 2 (IPS) - Across India , from the densely-populated western metropolis of Mumbai to the conservative southern temple city of Madurai, students are taking messages to end the stigma and discrimination around HIV/AIDS from classrooms to communities. On Dec. 2, outside Mumbai s humming Churchgate S
JOHANNESBURG, Dec 2 (IPS) - Campaigners from Southern Africa are bracing for the World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks to be held in Hong Kong later this month. Some plan to send representatives to the meeting, to protest against unfair trade legislation - particularly as this relates to agriculture. These represent
JOHANNESBURG, Dec 1 (IPS) - Millions of children around the world received a lesson, Thursday, in how to deal with something that many will inevitably confront: the AIDS pandemic. This global initiative, dubbed Lesson for Life , was spearheaded by the London-based Global Movement for Children (GMC) -- and co-ordinated
HAVANA, Dec 1 (IPS) - No matter how great an effort is made to guarantee the privacy of people living with HIV, the AIDS virus, this right continues to be constantly violated in most countries around the world. In the northwest African country of Mauritania , for example, women need permission from their husbands to un
LONDON, Dec 1 (IPS) - The lesson on AIDS millions of children learnt at school on World AIDS Day Thursday could be the most important lesson of their lives; it could be a lesson also that they taught their elders who have forgotten the lessons taught by AIDS around the world. Children around the world attended what was
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 1 (IPS) - Millions of people living with HIV/AIDS in poor parts of the world could lose their lives in the next few years if governments fail to keep their promises to fight the deadly pandemic, warn U.N. officials and health advocacy groups. In the absence of treatment, as many as 74 million people
NAIROBI, Nov 30 (IPS) - With only a quarter of Kenyans who need anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs) receiving them from government, the race is on to ensure that many more people get treatment to fend off AIDS-related diseases. But, is a similar enthusiasm being applied -- particularly by officials -- to ensuring that ARV rec
RIO DE JANEIRO, Nov 30 (IPS) - Brazil is pushing ahead with its widely-praised anti-AIDS programme by setting itself the goal of reducing vertical transmission of HIV, the AIDS virus, to less than one percent within three years. At present the proportion of infants infected by their mothers is estimated at 3.7 percent,
PARIS, Nov 30 (IPS) - The French government approved a small levy this week on all commercial flights from France in order to fund development aid. The government proposed additional taxation from one euro for economy class to 10 euros for business class on national and European flights. On intercontinental flights the
TOKYO, Nov 30 (IPS) - Eri Iwase, 19, a pretty first year university student, says she is not worried about being infected with HIV virus that causes Acquired Immuno Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), even though she is sexually active. I just feel AIDS is a disease that has nothing to do with me, she said, explaining that her
PARIS, Nov 29 (IPS) - Cases of AIDS have risen recently in several Western European countries such as France , Germany and Britain on the back of a new laxity in sexual habits, new research shows. The resurgence has been fed by wrong beliefs that AIDS is no longer a deadly disease in rich countries, health experts and
JOHANNESBURG, Nov 25 (IPS) - Jane Zweli* has tried to escape her abusive marriage -- tried no less than three times, in fact. But, with little education and few skills, she fears that a future away from her husband might be even bleaker than one with him. This is the third time I ve run away from my husband. I have thr
SANGLI, Nov 23 (IPS) - The calendar on the dimly lit wall inside Sushila Patil s two-room home in Hanumantpur village screams out what may be going on inside her head every minute. The two sentences in bold typeface say, There is a time gap between HIV and AIDS. So don t kill me with discrimination, I m still alive.
KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 22 (IPS)- The panel discussions and debates at a regional conference here on sexual health, on the weekend, were a world away from Channa and Sophea s daily environment--the din of music, clients chatter and unwanted advances at the restaurant in Cambodia where they work as beer promoters. Beer pr
MUMBAI, Nov 22 (IPS)- India may be a major exporter of anti-retroviral (ARV)drugs but barely 30,000 people are actually on medication in this country which itself has a burden of five million HIV positive cases. In April 2004, the government announced a treatment roll-out programme through centres in each of the six
CAPE TOWN, Nov 21 (IPS) - Ndiphiwe Nyathi s* mother died while her daughter was at school; now the teenage girl is missing classes to nurse her ailing father. When she does attend lessons, she seems angry, says Valencia Gqaleni, one of her teachers at Manyano High School. She fought with the other learners one day.
BUENOS AIRES, Nov 21 (IPS) - In Haiti , the poorest country in the hemisphere, HIV prevalence fell in urban areas due to changes in sexual behaviour. But in the region as a whole, the number of people living with HIV, the AIDS virus, rose in 2005. The good and bad news was announced by the AIDS Epidemic Update 2005 ,
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 21 (IPS) - Human trafficking has tied with the illegal arms industry as the largest and fastest growing criminal enterprise in the world after the illicit drug trade. There are 27 million people serving as literal slaves around the world, and every year 600,000 to 800,000 victims are trafficked acro
LONDON, Nov 21 (IPS) - The Caribbean countries lead the few that have unexpectedly reversed the spread of AIDS, says a UN report released Monday. Last year we were saying that this was the region after sub-Saharan Africa that had the biggest increase, policy director with the United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (Unaid
KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 18 (IPS) - What s the difference between condoms meant to block transmission of HIV/AIDS and those aimed at preventing unwanted pregnancies? None, of course -- although you d never guess as much when looking at the work of AIDS campaigners and those who promote family planning. All too often, these gr
JOHANNESBURG, Nov 16 (IPS) - The development of microcredit initiatives has proved a boon for thousands of the world s poor. But, even the most ardent supporters of these schemes acknowledge that disease may undermine the effectiveness of microcredit, by threatening the ability of people to repay their loans. How then
BRUSSELS, Nov 7 (IPS) - Gender experts will gather here this week for an international conference to examine how changing development policies are affecting efforts to promote gender equality and women s rights. The conference on Owning Development: Promoting Gender Equality in New Modalities and Partnerships to be hel
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 28 (IPS) - Kerrel McKay from Jamaica was nine years old when her father was diagnosed with HIV. She became his primary caretaker until his death five years later. He never spoke about AIDS, even to me, said McKay, who is now 20. But I know that speaking out and getting the world to recognise the tol
MBABANE, Oct 27 (IPS) - The plight of AIDS orphans in Swaziland , currently labouring under the world s highest HIV prevalence rate, is an issue that demands coverage. Journalists often find themselves in a quandary concerning how best to tackle it, however. A child could be scarred for life by something that is writte
BANGKOK, Oct 25 (IPS) - Talking sex in predominantly Muslim Malaysia is not for the faint-hearted. More so if you dare do it in the full gaze of the public eye and on television week in and week out. Yet, that is what Malaysian women Rafidah Abdullah and Kartini Ariffin have been doing in an endeavour that is a mix of
LONDON, Oct 25 (IPS) - The situation of children born into AIDS is shocking, but Unicef believes it may still take a celebrity to get people to feel the shock. And so the five-year campaign launched by the United Nations children s agency to deal with AIDS among children is being fronted by Jemima Khan, who became famo
OUAGADOUGOU, Oct 23 (IPS) - For Zenabo Nikieme, a Burkinab‚ woman who has been HIV-positive since 2000, the future once again offers a glimmer of hope. Last year it was a very different story -- something that prompted her to pen an open letter to Burkina Faso s Minister of Health. I m an HIV-positive widow and I have
BANGKOK, Oct 21 (IPS) - With hardly a hint of shame, voices from the Western world s political establishment are exhibiting a view that seems to say that the lives of people in the developed world matter more than those that populate the South. Chuck Schumer, a member of the U.S. Senate from New York, a typical example
JOHANNESBURG, Oct 14 (IPS) - It seems an obvious response to a pressing problem. If there are thousands of orphaned children in South Africa who cannot find a home in their extended families, then why not place more emphasis on adoption? And if adoptive families cannot be found locally, why not look abroad? Yet, fe
RIO DE JANEIRO, Oct 12 (IPS) - Watching his mother receive frequent beatings at the hands of his stepfather, until she finally lost her hearing in one ear, made him a quiet teenager who keeps his gaze glued to the floor. But he decided that he was not going to become a violent man himself, as often occurs in such cases
MADURAI, India , Oct 12 (IPS) - When a group of HIV-positive women dared go public with their health status at a modest function in early October, it was a revolution for this conservative town, famed for its ancient granite pagodas that speak of development in another millennium. True, there were just a half dozen
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 12 (IPS) - The largest gathering of world leaders meeting at the United Nations last month declared that the international community must keep gender equality, HIV/AIDS and reproductive health at the top of the global agenda over the next decade. This resolve, says Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, executive dir
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 7 (IPS) - With nearly half the world s population of six billion people under 25 years old, the U.N. warned this week that poverty and lack of education is creating a new generation of marginalised youth. U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Louise Frechette noted that there are 200 million young people ag
MAPUTO, Sep 30 (IPS) - At the tender age of 12, Pedro Moniz* is already a veteran when it comes to observing the regimen of anti-retroviral drugs that keeps AIDS-related illnesses at bay. I take one tablet at six am, another at 1.45 pm just before school, another at 5.45 pm when I return from school -- and the last at
BANGKOK - When the thousands of people living with HIV in Thailand mark World AIDS Day on Dec.1, they will have reason to smile. No more will the threat of early death for lack of anti-HIV drugs haunt them. Such hope stems from the Thai government s decision to offer access to anti-retroviral (HIV is a retrovirus) medi
JOHANNESBURG, Sep 24 (IPS) - Real love, as they say, can be hard to find. And, the odds of coming across a caring partner are even slimmer if you re open about being HIV-positive. But, what if you confined your search to a group of people who had also contracted the virus? Would this increase the chances of finding a s
WASHINGTON, Sep 19 (IPS) - If U.S. President George W. Bush is serious about his enthusiastic embrace last week at the United Nations of democracy and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to slash global poverty, he will press his treasury secretary and other members of the governing board of the International Monet
HAVANA, Sep 16 (IPS) - A government-sponsored HIV/AIDS prevention group and the Cuban Film Institute (ICAIC) joined forces to organise a groundbreaking event: the first ever gay cinema week in the history of Cuba. Sexual Diversity , as the film series is called, ran Monday through Friday at he 23 y 12 movie theatre in
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 15 (IPS) - The world not only needs more money for development, it also needs to find new ways of raising it, a group of countries led by Brazil and France argued as they announced innovative development financing projects at the United Nations World Summit. French Prime Minister Dominique de Vi
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 13 (IPS) - When the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were conceived by the United Nations about five years ago, the world body failed to single out the importance of a crucial socioeconomic factor in battling poverty and hunger: population growth. Population fell off the radar screen, says an Asi
BANGKOK, Sep 13 (IPS) - In another demonstration of its commitment towards south-south cooperation, Thailand unveiled a report detailing its 167 million U.S. dollars contributions in a year as official development assistance (ODA) to aid its poorer neighbours. That contribution, which in 2003 made up 0.13 percent of Th
NAIROBI, Sep 13 (IPS) - Given Kenya s well-documented fight against corruption, few would dispute that rigorous systems need to be put in place for disbursing donor funds in the East African country. But, at what point does necessary rigour become needless obstructionism? In the case of AIDS funding in particular, is r
HELSINKI, Sep 8 (IPS) - A failure to address health crises can threaten security and stability worldwide, experts warned at the Helsinki Conference here Thursday. AIDS has caused life expectancy to drop to 30 years in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa - less than half the life expectancy of privileged societies, said Li
KATHMANDU, Sep 6 (IPS) - Nearly 30,000 Nepali children die yearly in their first month of life, the third highest rate in the world. Yet, the battered country is on track to slash under-five mortality by two-thirds within a decade, says the United Nations. Other improvements are underway, in a nation where the bleeding
RIO DE JANEIRO, Sep 5 (IPS) - Women s rights activists in Brazil say the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are narrower than the objectives adopted at international conferences in the 1990s. Instead of defending the MDGs, it would be better to fight for compliance with the commitments assumed at the global conference
BANGKOK, Sep 5 (IPS) - For over 15 years a clinic in Mae Sot, a town along Thailand s north-western border, has offered a glimpse into how widespread tuberculosis (TB) is in neighbouring Burma . It is to that clinic, run by Dr.Cynthia Maung, that a stream of poor men, women and children, escaping military-ruled Burma f
Central America and Uganda this week became the latest targets for right-wing leaders to blast HIV/AIDS prevention efforts that stray from the George W. Bush administration s abstinence-only ideology. One of the country s most influential faith-based organisations, Focus on the Family (FOF), charged that a U.S. not-for
BANGKOK , Aug 28 (IPS) - Who says the Millennium Development Goals or MDGs can be boring? Not if a military regime comes in the way of one of the global targets prescribed by the United Nations--halting the spread of AIDS by 2015. And more so if that regime happens to be the dictatorship that has, for over 40 years, do
NEW YORK, Aug 23 (IPS) - A U.S.-based family-planning charity is formally challenging Washington s anti-prostitution policy, calling it an unconstitutional infringement of speech that is undermining international efforts to stem the spread of HIV/AIDS. The group, DKT International, filed its lawsuit in district court a
HAVANA, Aug 23 (IPS) - The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria will provide Cuba with millions of dollars over the next three years to help improve quality of life and treatment for people living with HIV/AIDS and to reinforce efforts to prevent the spread of the disease. The 14.6 million dollars to
WASHINGTON, Aug 23 (IPS) - Despite fertility declines in most countries and reduced life expectancy due to the HIV/AIDS epidemic in some African nations, the global population will reach 6.5 billion people by the end of this year and should hit seven billion by 2012, according to a report released here Tuesday by the P
MOSCOW, Aug 23 (IPS) - Thousands of children born to HIV-positive mothers are being abandoned, new data shows. The women themselves face widespread discrimination, even from doctors who often deny treatment and betray confidentiality. According to official data now made available, more than 10,000 HIV-positive women ha
BROOKLIN, Canada , Aug 22 (IPS) - Africa must urgently boost investments in aquaculture to fight hunger, as natural fish stocks on the continent and elsewhere decline, scientists say. Africa is the only region in the world where the per capita fish consumption is dropping, placing an estimated 200 million Africans who
GENEVA, Aug 22 (IPS) - A new World Health Organisation (WHO) report shows that less than encouraging results have been obtained so far in the international community s efforts to fulfil the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). These targets are aimed at eradicating extreme poverty and improving the health and welfare o
GENEVA - The reinstatement of seven generic antiretroviral drugs produced by Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd in India on WHO s list of prequalified medicines will reinforce efforts to ensure access to affordable quality AIDS drugs in poor countries, the global health agency stated Friday.
CARACAS, Aug 12 (IPS) - The Venezuelan government has launched an AIDS prevention campaign that specifically targets women and youth, sectors in which the incidence of the disease is growing worldwide. Venezuela is one of the few countries that guarantees universal access to treatment for all people with HIV/AIDS, and
WINDHOEK, Aug 11 (IPS) - When my father died my uncle and his wife came and took all our stuff. They even took away our television, said an eleven-year-old orphan in Namibia , describing a tradition that allows relatives to take land, livestock, furniture and even clothes from bereaved families. The child was speak
MAPUTO, Aug 10 (IPS) - For children in Mozambique who are orphaned by AIDS, burying parents may simply signal the start of their battle with the pandemic. All too often, these orphans also find themselves amongst those most at risk of contracting HIV. There are lots of dramatic stories, said Beauty Jorge, a community
MBABANE, Aug 9 (IPS) - People who don t know me see this stylishly- dressed young woman driving a nice car, and they think, Isn t she lucky? She has a rich man as a lover to give her things , says Angela Shabalala as she manoeuvres her blue BMW sedan onto a highway leading to the Swazi capital, Mbabane. In fact, the un
KOLKATA, Aug 8 (IPS) - It took a photo exhibition on the lives and work of India s truck drivers for many to realise that they are more than just another high-risk group for HIV/AIDS in a list drawn by voluntary agencies working against the disease. The exhibition titled Driven by British freelance photographer Jason T
DHAKA, Aug 8 (IPS) - When asked his mother s name, four-year-old, bright- eyed Jowel ventures softly, Ma . Mother is the only identity the 70 children in this Dhaka shelter home can claim and the lack of a father s name has serious implications for their future, starting with the fact that they are nor entitled to a bi
BUENOS AIRES, Aug 5 (IPS) - Latin America s health ministers negotiating as a bloc with representatives of the pharmaceutical industry secured reductions of up to 66 percent on the prices of HIV/AIDS drugs. The agreement reached at the second round of joint negotiations, which ended Friday in the Argentine capital, wil
RIO DE JANEIRO, Aug 5 (IPS) - Despite its highly publicised threats, the Brazilian government has decided not to break the patent on the antiretroviral drug Kaletra , a move that has disappointed and angered those who administer, sponsor and benefit from the country s highly lauded HIV/AIDS treatment programme.
KINGSTON, Aug 5 (IPS) - In a desperate bid to limit the spread of HIV/AIDS, the Jamaican government is preparing to hear arguments for and against existing legislation outlawing homosexuality and prostitution. It represents an about-face from the previous hard-line stance by the Percival Patterson administration, which
PARIS, Aug 4 (IPS) - The French government decision to tie medical care to legal status has cut off about 400,000 illegal immigrants from access to treatment. The government introduced a new law Jul. 29 requiring all immigrants needing medical care to provide evidence first of their legal entry into the country. Beside
Inter Press Service (Johannesburg) - August 1, 2005
Bayano Valy, Maputo
With an HIV prevalence of over 12 percent, Mozambique is one of many African countries grappling with the challenge of supplying treatment to citizens who risk succumbing to AIDS-related diseases. A proposal to build the country s first-ever factory for manufacturing generic anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs) may provide som
Inter Press Service (Johannesburg) - July 28, 2005
Mario Osava, Rio De Janeiro
The tragic situation in Africa has led AIDS researchers to ignore the realities of other regions of the world, including Latin America, local activists stressed at the end of a major international conference held here this week. A prime example is the impact made by a recent study which recommends male circumcision as
RIO DE JANEIRO, Jul 28 (IPS) - The tragic situation in Africa has led AIDS researchers to ignore the realities of other regions of the world, including Latin America, local activists stressed at the end of a major international conference held here this week. A prime example is the impact made by a recent study which r
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 28 (IPS) - While South Asia s economy has never been healthier, the vast majority of its people cannot say the same. Last year, the region s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew 7.2 percent, but this rosy figure has little bearing on most of the 1.5-billion population s quality of life, according to a
MBABANE, Jul 27 (IPS) - While Swaziland s soaring HIV prevalence and the spending habits of King Mswati the Third are issues which often land the country in the headlines, problems also loom on another front: about a quarter of Swazis are currently dependent on international food aid. Just over 100,000 tonnes of the st
WASHINGTON, Jul 26 (IPS) - With the U.S. House of Representatives due to vote this week on the fate of the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), international health activists are warning that the intellectual property provisions included in the pact could spell death for hundreds of thousands of poor people.
NAIROBI, Jul 26 (IPS) - For those Kenyans who have contracted HIV, getting access to anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs) is seldom an easy matter. In the case of children, however, the situation is even more problematic. According to Health Minister Charity Ngilu, only 1,200 of the 44,000 people receiving free ARVs in Kenya a
BANGKOK, Jul 21 (IPS) - While political reform in Burma is set to dominate next week s meeting of South-east Asian foreign ministers in Laos , a far more deadly subject, HIV in the region, cries for attention. Reports since the beginning of July say that the military-ruled country is more than the politi
PORT OF SPAIN, Jul 20 (IPS) - The Caribbean region has the highest prevalence of HIV/AIDS in the world after sub-Saharan Africa, and a new report by a group of eminent Caribbean health and finance experts says things are only getting worse. The report by the 19-member Caribbean Commission on Health and Development, hea
NEW YORK, Jul 19(IPS) - Song and dance against a verdant valley. Good pitted against evil. Fantastical villains. Bright colours. Spectacle and turmoil. No more, no less, this is Bollywood as the Indian film industry has been known for decades. Yet since the 1990s there has been a perceptible change in the quality and s
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 18 (IPS) - The United Nations is urging stronger international cooperation and long-term strategies to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS, which is causing devastation among peacekeepers and national militaries worldwide. Although we have made significant inroads in educating peacekeepers and national u
MBABANE, Jul 15 (IPS) - A new advertising campaign aimed at curtailing teenage HIV rates by promoting abstinence is using a combination of traditional and modern values in its appeal to Swazi youth. The SiSwati phrase Ngoba likusasa nelami -- Because tomorrow is mine -- has been chosen as the theme of the initiative, w
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 15 (IPS) - A new U.N. report calls for urgent action to combat the dual crises of poverty and AIDS in Least Developed Countries (LDCs). The report, Hoping and Coping, The Capacity Challenge of HIV/AIDS in Least Developed Countries , issued by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the O
JOHANNESBURG, Jul 14 (IPS) - Two years ago, Caroline Sande-Mukulira joined civil society activists in the French resort of Evian to plead Africa s cause. Her experiences at the Group of Eight (G8) summit, where leaders of the most industrialized nations dragged their feet on global issues -- including the problems faci
JOHANNESBURG, Jul 13 (IPS) - Former South African president Nelson Mandela and United States First Lady Laura Bush campaigned in two South African cities this week against the spread of AIDS. Mandela, about to turn 87, urged young people to use condoms and not to have sex prematurely. People should delay having sex un
DURBAN, Jul 12 (IPS) - It is tempting to call it a no brainer : the idea that attempts to prevent transmission of HIV from mothers to children should be matched by initiatives to keep these mothers alive after they give birth. For all this, efforts in South Africa to prioritise the health of HIV-positive mothers have f
SAMUT SAKHON, Thailand , Jul 11 (IPS) - It was fear that drove Ma Ne from her home in Burma s Mon state to this port town famous for its seafood processing factories. She wanted to escape the forced labour policy of the Burmese military regime. Yet that flight led to a job that brought with it respiratory problems and
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 8 (IPS) - The world s rapid population growth, predicted to rise from the current 6.5 billion people to about 9.1 billion by the middle of the century, could have serious security consequences not only for a country or region but for the entire world, a new report warns. The rising global population
WINDHOEK, Jul 8 (IPS) - It s the wrong profession to be in, says Father Herman Klein-Hitpass, with a nervous chuckle. This is the type of comment that one might expect a Catholic priest to make about prostitution. However, Klein-Hitpass is not speaking about the moral pitfalls that life as a sex worker arguably entails
BANGKOK, Jul 8 (IPS) - Dede Oetomo, an openly gay Indonesian anthropologist, quit his post at a major university in his country when his request for a new academic programme - a masters degree in sexuality - was turned down. That moment in February 2003 helped define what Indonesia s sexual minorities are up against: a
SANTIAGO, Jul 6 (IPS) - This September the Chilean government will launch an AIDS prevention campaign that places greater emphasis on the use of condoms, but will take only limited advantage of television as a means of spreading its message, a decision that health care specialists fear will make it less effective. The
KUALA LUMPUR, Jul 6 (IPS) - When Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi axed a high-ranking cabinet minister this month for vote-buying, it was seen as a move to appease backbenchers, opposition politicians and human rights activists. The crackdown on ômoney politics , local euphemism for political corruption was in keeping wi
KOBE, Japan , Jul 5 (IPS) - Sneha Samaj, an HIV-positive woman from Nepal , attends a spiritual class once a month. There, she reads the Bible and discusses the importance of compassion together with others living with HIV/AIDS, under the gentle leadership of nuns. The class is very important to my life,
KOBE, Japan , Jul 4(IPS) - Pheng Pharozin, 25, a soft spoken Cambodian woman was happily married with an infant daughter when she tested positive for HIV two years ago. I never thought I would be infected because I had sexual relations only with my husband, explained Pharozin at the 7th International Congress of AIDS i
KOBE, Japan , Jul 2 (IPS) - Building communities that accept people living with HIV/AIDS is crucial in controlling an epidemic in the region, activists said Saturday at the 7th International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific. By encouraging more people to feel confident of being socially accepted even after bein
BANGKOK, Jun 28 (IPS) - After tiptoeing around the issue for months, Thailand s trade negotiators will have to finally reveal where they stand on the life-or-death question of producing cheap, generic anti-AIDS drugs. The debate over intellectual property rights (IPR), which includes protecting the patents of expensive
JOHANNESBURG, Jun 22 (IPS) - Twelve million and counting: that is the number of children who have lost one or both parents to AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa, according to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. This figure is expected to double by 2010. A great many of these AIDS orphans are l
MOSCOW, Jun 20 (IPS) - The message is sharp, slick, and not scary. It sounds like the language Russian authorities need in order to save the country from an AIDS epidemic. The message is working, health officials say. Russian youths are taking more responsible attitudes towards AIDS after the broadcast of three film cl
ISIOLO, Jun 17 (IPS) - Madonna s 1980s hit song Like a Virgin blasts incongruously from a giant silver speaker in the corner of a bar deep inside Isiolo - a dusty town on the edge of Kenya s northern Kaisut desert, filled with tough nomads and their herds of emaciated animals. The establishment heaves with an assortmen
KUALA LUMPUR, Jun 16 (IPS) - Beneath the affluence, the sophistication and the Western trappings lies the soft under belly of Malaysia s Islamic conservatism -- no sex education in schools, no holding hands, no kissing in parks, no visuals of condoms on television and, sometimes, even no cinemas. So it came as a deep s
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 9 (IPS) - If current economic and social trends continue, many of the world s poorest countries will not be able to meet many-- or perhaps any-- of the U.N. Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned Thursday. The eight goals, approved at a summit meeting of 189 wo
COLOMBO, Jun 8 (IPS) - With only 614 confirmed cases of AIDS in a population of 19.5 million and an HIV prevalence rate below 0.1 percent, Sri Lanka looks almost untouched by the deadly disease --but an epidemic is still possible, warn experts. We should not take this lightly -- there is a big risk, Dr Hemantha
DURBAN, Jun 6 (IPS) - Subsistence agriculture makes for a hard life, particularly in areas that are badly hit by HIV. Put farming and AIDS together, add drought or disease, and you have a diabolical mixture of circumstances. This assertion has become an article of faith in many African countries, not least
BERLIN, Jun 6 (IPS) - There is little money in developing treatment for diseases peculiar to developing countries, leading researchers say. And there is no more poignant illustration of this than the development of antiretrovirals used in treatment of HIV/AIDS, says Tido von Sch”n-Angerer of the international aid orga
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 3 (IPS) - Worried that a lack of resources for HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention could result in hundreds of thousands of deaths in poor countries this year, health activists are urging the world s richest nations to do much more to fight the pandemic. The renewed call for funding comes after a U.N.
NEW DELHI, Jun 2 (IPS) - Claims by India s Health Ministry that the number of new HIV infections in the country have dropped by more than 90 percent have dismayed voluntary agencies and those who insist the government is in denial mode concerning sexually transmittable diseases. According to figures released last week
KOLKATA, India , May 27 (IPS) - A battle cry by thousands of sex workers in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal threatens to trigger a worldwide protest against the United States for passing a bill that requires groups receiving U.S. AIDS relief money to publicly condemn prostitution. When sex workers sneeze,
BULAWAYO, May 26 (IPS) - Age offers little protection against AIDS; children are often the disease s unwitting victims. Yet for the young ones in Southern Africa, treatment is only just beginning. But the long-term health implications are still largely unknown while lack of child-specific dosages presents another majo
BANGKOK, May 26 (IPS) - Though right smack in the middle of the Thai capital s largest slum, the Human Development Foundation teems with life and children struggling to live. At lunch hour, children of all ages stand in a row along their long table, enthusiastically singing, giving thanks for their food. Home mothers,
BULAWAYO, May 24 (IPS) - Do you think I can go for an HIV test and be accepted? Zitha scoffs at the suggestion. Disabled, and also a single mother, the 44-year-old swears her fear of discrimination is no idle assumption. Rather, it is based on her experience at a test centre she visited last year. The attitude was horr
MANILA, May 23 (IPS) - Bella, a teenage mother pregnant with her third child, called up Libby Manaoag, host of a radio talk show in the Philippine capital. The high school dropout wanted advice to stop her husband from beating her. She still loved him, Bella confessed, even though he had tried to burn her hands over th
NEW DELHI, May 19 (IPS) - It is still debatable whether India is sitting on a ticking HIV/AIDS time bomb. But pro-Hindu groups seem to have brought the issue to the forefront by serving notice to international funding agencies that campaigns showing the sub-continent s religious and cultural values in a poor light wil
TNOAT TRET, Cambodia , May 17 (IPS) - Neth Srey, 35, dreams of one day joining the ranks of the wealthy with the savings that her husband makes from working on a fishing boat in neighbouring Thailand . In her balcony, Neth is lost in a reverie as she waits for her husband to return after being away for weeks.
UNITED NATIONS, May 16 (IPS) - As the 191-member U.N. General Assembly gets ready for a high-level meeting on HIV/AIDS early next month, activists and senior U.N. officials say the global fight against the deadly disease is being jeopardised by a shortage of funds. There s an urgent crisis at the global level and it is
KUALA LUMPUR, May 10 (IPS) - Most women in Afghanistan don t get a chance to grow old, Massouda Jalal told the elegantly dressed women delegates at the inaugural Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) Ministerial Meeting on Woman and Empowerment that ended here on Tuesday. Many of them are dead before they reach old age, she add
GENEVA, May 3 (IPS) - Despite the promising advances made in the prevention and treatment of malaria around the world, the disease continues to represent a major challenge in Africa, where the overwhelming majority of deaths now take place. The 2005 World Malaria Report, released Tuesday by the World Health Organisatio
MBABANE, May 3 (IPS) - For years, health surveys in the wake of southern Africa s AIDS pandemic have shown that itinerate occupations like truck drivers and seasonal agricultural workers pose a greater risk for workers of contracting and spreading HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. These occupations are opposed to jobs t
SANTIAGO, Apr 30 (IPS) - Chile s Central Unitaria de Trabajadores (CUT) trade union federation has launched a campaign aimed at the prevention of AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, based on the philosophy that the labour movement should also take on emerging challenges, such as awareness-raising and educatio
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 29 (IPS) - Stephen Lewis, the U.N. Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, invariably returns to New York with half a dozen harrowing stories of death and devastation in a continent ravaged by the spreading disease. During a visit to a village in the Zambian countryside a few weeks ago, he ran into an
DURBAN, Apr 27 (IPS) - Bonisiwe Maphumulo sits on a straight-backed chair in the sun outside her thatched, one-room home in rural Msinga. What she says next is, most probably, a lie. I don t know what sickness I ve got, the 51-year-old widow observes in Zulu, cradling a small granddaughter on her lap. I have diahorrea,
NAIROBI, Apr 22 (IPS) - Smoke from open fires roasting slabs of meat and maize cobs rises alongside a rutted, dusty road in Kangemi, a slum north-west of Kenya s capital Nairobi. Scrawny chickens scratch in the dirt; goats gather in plastic-strewn alleyways to feed on rotting piles of rubbish, competing for space with
HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam , Apr 19 (IPS) - A draft law that will force people living with HIV/AIDS to inform their spouses of their health status is under fire from community health workers who claim the proposed legislation is unrealistic and ignores present realities in Vietnam. The draft ordinance, currently in
DURBAN, South Africa , Apr 18 (IPS) - If one wants to find out how AIDS is increasing hunger and malnutrition, one can expect to harvest an abundance of depressing information. But soon, this may change. In the last five years alone, there have been about 500 different papers on food and nutrition security related to
JOHANNESBURG, Apr 18 (IPS) - A group of traditional dancers, donning colourful artificial animal skins and headgears, formed a circle around a drummer, entertaining guests heading to an AIDS event. The dancers, most of whom were in dreadlocks, suddenly sprang up, formed an arch and burst into a melodic song, dancing an
HARARE, Apr 15 (IPS) - Emily Muronda, 55, spent seven months in hospital in 2003. She had been down with AIDS-related complications, which saw her in and out of the hospital, that year. Muronda s ailments included tuberculosis , severe vaginal thrush and pneumonia. On her doctor s advice, Muronda, a widow, had
MBABANE, Apr 14 (IPS) - Gogo (granny) Dube, a small but spry white-haired woman of 67, has had to raise five grandchildren since her daughter and son-in-law, the children s parents, died of AIDS-related illnesses within months of each other in 2000. This is not the way my life should have happened. It is a tragedy when
MAPUTO, Apr 14 (IPS) - Lying outside her hut on a tattered mat, 20-year-old Maria struggled with her breathing as she tried to explain why she and her five orphaned nieces and nephews in her charge had not eaten. Maria, whose name is changed to protect the family s privacy, was dying from AIDS-related diseases, as well
BANGKOK, Apr 13 (IPS) - If critics of the Thai government s international trade policies have their way, then the current negotiations for a free trade agreement (FTA) between Bangkok and Washington could evolve into constitutional crisis for this South-east Asian nation. Signs of such a political fall out emerged by t
NAIROBI, Apr 11 (IPS) - When this week s international donors conference on Sudan winds up in the Norwegian capital of Oslo, the long-neglected women of South Sudan hope a substantial funding would be allocated to empower them after a 21-year civil war. The two-day gathering, which kicked off in Oslo Apr. 11, is seeki
MOSCOW, Apr 11 (IPS) - The Russian government is turning increasingly towards businesses to support its fight against AIDS. The move comes after health experts confirmed registration of more than 312,000 HIV positive people in the country. The real number is estimated to be closer to a million in a country with a popul
UNITED NATONS, Apr 7 (IPS) - More resources are being poured into campaigns against HIV/AIDS than ever before, even as an unprecedented number of advocates demand new treatment and prevention strategies to address the skyrocketing number of women becoming infected with the virus. Debrework Zewdie, director of the World
KAMPALA, Apr 7 (IPS) - Members of Uganda s minority Muslim community have criticised their country s domestic relations bill, saying it goes against the teachings of Islam. To express their anger, thousands of Muslims from various parts of the country (police estimated 7,000), led by Sheikh Ramadhan Mubajje, held a dem
FREETOWN, Apr 5 (IPS) - The United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone may be preparing for the final pullout of its peacekeeping force by the end of the year, but it seems, the mission wants to leave behind a clean record, in so far as sexual exploitation and abuse is concerned. The mission has embarked on massive sensiti
WINDHOEK, Apr 4 (IPS) - Namibia has identified the need to strengthen sexual health education in the school curriculum in response to the threat being posed by the HIV/AIDS pandemic. For the past eight years, sexual health education has been included in the curriculum. But it focused largely on knowledge, and lacked a
JOHANNESBURG, Apr 2 (IPS) - Even as Roman Catholics around the world mourn the death of Pope John Paul II, the attention of many is turning to the future -- and the question of who will succeed the Polish cleric as Bishop of Rome. With support for Catholicism registering its strongest growth in Africa, certain Vatican
VANCOUVER, Apr 1 (IPS) - A year and a half after opening North America s first safe injection site, Vancouver will soon be the first city in the region to prescribe free heroin to about 158 addicts in carefully monitored clinical trials. This is more than establishing a standard of care, it s about establishing a stand
JOHANNESBURG, Mar 31 (IPS) - Muslims and Catholics do not see eye-to-eye on many issues. But when it comes to practices which they fear will allow the encroachment of unacceptable secular values - abortion, gay marriage and condom use - they quickly close ranks to form a united front against the threat. This explains w
SANTIAGO, Mar 29 (IPS) - A court decision to drop all criminal charges against a man living with HIV/AIDS who was growing cannabis at home for therapeutic reasons has reopened the debate over medicinal marijuana in Chile . Rafael Antonio D. J., 41, spent 53 days in prison in 2001 after being falsely accused of selling
HARARE, Mar 29 (IPS) - As AIDS affects a growing number of women and girls in sub-Saharan Africa, a timely novel has been released by first time Zimbabwean author Lutanga Shaba which tackles the factors underpinning women s vulnerability to HIV. Entitled Secrets of a Woman s Soul , the novel recounts the story of Beata
MASAKA, Southern Uganda , Mar 29 (IPS) - Uganda is one of Africa s rare success stories in the fight against AIDS, having reduced its HIV prevalence from 30 per cent in the early 1990s to six per cent today. However, the pandemic has still taken a toll on the East African country, causing almost two million children t
SIEM REAP, Cambodia , Mar 28 (IPS) - The East Asia-Pacific region has experienced unprecedented economic growth in the past 14 years, despite several crises, but the increasing disparity between and within countries means that not everyone is sharing in the prosperity. Those being left behind include the most vulnerab
NAIROBI, Mar 25 (IPS) - AIDS is threatening Kenya s money-lending institutions which are supporting about 16 percent of the country s 30 million people. The threat has prompted the management of the micro-finance institutions to begin looking at practical ways of tackling the problem, including taking out insurance to
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 24 (IPS) - Despite the fact that it is a curable disease, tuberculosis killed more people than all wars, earthquakes, floods, tsunamis, airline accidents, terrorist acts and murders worldwide in the past year, according to a report released Thursday to mark World Tuberculosis (TB) Day. While tr
NEW DELHI, Mar 24 (IPS) - Boxed in by pressures from its communist allies on one side and the ultra-nationalist opposition on the other, the ruling Congress party-led United Progressive Alliance has managed to pass a patent law in the Indian parliament that broadly conforms to World Trade Organisation rules while prote
BEIJING, Mar 24 (IPS) - After neglecting the danger of an HIV/AIDS pandemic for years, local authorities in several seriously affected regions in China have unveiled aggressive prevention and control measures that are stirring debates about individual rights here. In recent months green harbours , or purposely-built h
JOHANNESBURG, Mar 18 (IPS) - Carol Bellamy s final trip to Africa as head of the United Nations Children s Fund, UNICEF, has been overshadowed by what she terms the stark contrast between aid given to Zimbabwe - and that received by other African countries in need, especially those in Southern Africa. Since 2000,
MOSCOW, Mar 14 (IPS) Health experts and non-governmental organisations are warning of a rapid spread of HIV/AIDS in Russia . Spread of the virus is rising particularly among up to four million Russians on drugs, they say. The number of HIV-infected patients rose to more than 300,000 early this year from 270,000 last y
IMPHAL, India , Mar 14 (IPS) - As funds pour into India s ambitious programme of providing free anti-retrovirals (ARVs), it is becoming clear that many HIV-infected people in the north-eastern Manipur state - where the fight against AIDS is threatening to get out of control - will be left out. This is due to the hi
CHIANG MAI, Thailand , Mar 11 (IPS) - For over a week, a Thai language newspaper published in this city has been running an advertisement that spells hope for the men and women hooked on heroin. The man behind the advertisement is Nantapol Chuenchooklin, or North to his friends. The 27-year-old former heroin user is p
BEIJING, Mar 9 (IPS) - When a scandal of stunning proportions unfolded in central China s Henan province in 2001 over the huge number of poor people being infected with HIV through the sale of their blood at a government-run scheme, it marked a slow and painful change for Beijing s complacent - and sometimes hostile -
CHURACHANDPUR, India , Mar 9 (IPS) - Perhaps no place on earth deserves free anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs) more than this remote district of 240,000 people in the northeast Indian state of Manipur - just on the porous India- Burma border. ARVs are substances used to kill or inhibit the multiplication
NEW YORK, Mar 4 (IPS) - Neo-liberal economic formulas and a quiet retreat from commitments to reproductive health rights are undermining the linked struggles for women s equality and economic and social development in Latin America, according to a new report released Friday. The report sponsored by the International Pl
CHIANG MAI, Thailand , Mar 4 (IPS) - Boon Srimai s tranquil life as a grandmother was shattered three years ago when death struck her family twice. Within a space of months in 2002, her 34- year-old son and his wife died of AIDS. Suddenly, Boon, who was 60 years at the time, found herself being a mother all over again
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 3 (IPS) - Making faster progress on gender equality is essential if states are to reach the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by their deadline, U.N. officials and women s rights experts said during the first week of the world body s international women s conference. The conference,
KOLKATA, India , Mar 3 (IPS) - Life in the mean streets of Kolkata s biggest red light district Sonagachi had only hopelessness to offer them. But the moments of glory at this year s Oscar night in Los Angeles might change the lives of the little shutterbugs who are Born into Brothels -- much to the chagrin of a few
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 2 (IPS) - More than 300 groups and individuals from 56 countries released an open letter Tuesday urging delegates of the U.N. Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) to resist U.S. pressure to withdraw support for syringe exchange programmes. The letter, signed by scientists, policy analysts, human righ
KAMPALA, Mar 1 (IPS) - Reports. They gather dust on the desks of journalists and bureaucrats - after having been opened with reluctance, and closed with speed. Months of work may have gone into their production; but all too often, the only use for these weighty tomes seems to be as doorstops. Even worse, the findings c
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 28 (IPS) - The U.N. Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), one of the key U.N. bodies monitoring both the progress and lack thereof in the social and economic development of women, has mixed feelings about a much-ballyhooed plan of action adopted at a major U.N. conference in Beijing in 1995. Gender
BRUSSELS, Feb 28 (IPS) - European citizens expect the European Union to play a central role in development cooperation, but most are unaware what it is doing for development, according to a survey released Friday last week. The survey Attitudes towards Development Aid reveals that 51 percent of those questioned believe
BANGKOK, Feb 28 (IPS) - Death becomes a dancing partner when one has HIV/AIDS. First you have to accept it, and then dance with lady death, says well-known U.S.-born Thai musician Todd Tongdee Lavelle. Lavelle was referring to the demise of all the seven members of the HIV Band - which before last July s Global AIDS C
NOUAKCHOTT, Feb 26 (IPS) - In the wooden shanty town of Elmina on the outskirts of Mauritania s capital, Nouakchott, AIDS educators do not let religious or cultural conservatism get in their way. A wooden dummy of a penis fitted with a condom is used to instruct people about the dangers of unprotected sex - perhaps a
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 25 (IPS) - Thousands of women leaders from around the world will gather here next week for a major international assessment of what U.N. member states have done in the past 10 years to ensure equal rights for women in all walks of life. Delegates at the Fourth World Summit in the Chinese capital of
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 25 (IPS) - An ambitious plan to curb extreme poverty and promote gender equality in the next decade will not get off the ground unless governments in the world s least developed countries put the HIV/AIDS pandemic at the top of their agendas, said U.N. experts yesterday. This means aggressively purs
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 24 (IPS) - The HIV/AIDS epidemic, which continues to devastate mostly the world s poorer nations, has increased the rate of mortality and slowed population growth, according to a new U.N. report released Thursday. Of the 60 highly affected countries, 40 are in sub-Saharan Africa, 12 in Latin America
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 22 (IPS) - When rebel leaders who recruit child soldiers are confronted by U.N. officials or human rights activists, they try to evade responsibility mostly by overstating the ages of rifle-toting children pressed into battle. Every time you talk to a child soldier, he is invariably coached to say h
MBABANE, Feb 22 (IPS) - There are several reasons why women s rights activists might welcome Swaziland s new constitution, intended to replace the document that was suspended by King Sobhuza in 1973. Then again, there are also reasons why they might not. In certain respects, the draft is refreshingly modern. Chapter
NEW DELHI, Feb 22 (IPS) - If the Indian Parliament ratifies a decree on patents that seeks to bring India s massive generic drugs industry in line with World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules, it will hurt poor patients - especially those suffering from HIV/AIDS -- not only in this country but also globally, say activists
MEXICO CITY, Feb 21 (IPS) - The discovery in the United States of a virulent new strain of the AIDS virus has led Mexican health authorities to sound the alert in Canc£n, the beach resort regularly inundated at this time of year with U.S. college students looking for a good time. Residents of this world-famous Caribb
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 18 (IPS) - The United Nations is calling on all member states to take urgent legislative steps to ban all human cloning practices as they are incompatible with human dignity and protection of human life. The declaration was adopted by a majority vote Friday following a heated debate in a meeting of
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 17 (IPS) - Every single night, 640 million children in developing countries go to bed without adequate shelter. Four hundred million have no access to safe water. One billion children live in poverty. Fifteen million have been orphaned by AIDS, and 11 million children a year never make it to their f
BRUSSELS, Feb 16 (IPS) - French and German proposals to tax airline fuel for development funding may face tough opposition at a meeting of European Union ministers later this week. European Union (EU) finance ministers meeting Thursday will consider a tax on kerosene fuel used by commercial aircraft to raise funds for
NAIROBI, Feb 14 (IPS) - I use a razor, scissors and thread, says traditional midwife Peris Machanja, describing part of her work in delivering a baby. Sometimes I use gloves, which I disinfect to use for another job - that is, if they are not torn. If they are, I try to get new ones. Fifty-five year old Machanja, who l
HAVANA, Feb 14 (IPS) - Latin America cannot count on foreign aid to help it reach the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) 10 years from now. Nor can it meet these targets solely on the strength of economic growth, because the gap between rich and poor remains the biggest hurdle, according to U.N. experts. Enrique Ganuz
BRUSSELS, Feb 14 (IPS) - Some of the richest states European Union are doing little to contribute to the Millennium Development Goals, says a new report by three leading development groups. As European Union (EU) development ministers prepare for an informal development meeting Tuesday (Feb. 15), the non-governmental o
BUENOS AIRES, Feb 11 (IPS) - The problems that triggered a violent revolt in which eight were killed in an Argentine prison before it was brought under control Friday are shared by many of the country s penitentiaries, where inmates are held in intolerable conditions , according to human rights groups. In the San Mart¡
JOHANNESBURG, Feb 10 (IPS) - Every year, thousands of Africans fleeing war and economic hardship make a perilous journey towards the tip of the continent - their sights set on a better life in the regional powerhouse, South Africa . Along with hope for the future, many also bring with them the AIDS virus. But whil
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 10 (IPS) - Asia is poised on the brink of an HIV/AIDS explosion unless governments take radical steps to rein in the disease, as well as the social and economic problems fuelling its spread, a prominent AIDS expert said Wednesday in New York. This story of AIDS is not a pretty story. It s one we don
WASHINGTON, Feb 9 (IPS) - An agreement by the group of seven most industrialised nations (G7) over the weekend to back 100 percent debt cancellation for poor nations has been applauded by long-time debt campaigners, but they warn that the proposal still faces some tough decisions. I think now it s very hard for G7 to g
TOKYO, Feb 9 (IPS) - Japan s new figures for HIV/AIDS are a cause for alarm with health experts indicating that the actual number could be far greater, given that many Japanese who may be positive have not yet been tested. Japan s Health Ministry reported late last week that the number of those infected with the HIV/AI
GENEVA, Feb 8 (IPS) - An AIDS vaccine will not be achieved until perhaps 10 years from now, but when that does happen, it will likely be made widely available around the world, without facing hurdles from the question of patent rights, according to WHO officials. The director of the World Health Organisation (WHO) Init
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 7 (IPS) - The rise in global defence spending and the ongoing war on terrorism are diverting scarce economic resources from social development to the military, says a new U.N. report released here. The study, a 10-year review of a plan of action adopted at the 1995 World Summit on Social Development
MBABANE, Feb 3 (IPS) - Said to be one of the ten most expensive cars in the world, the Maybach 62 is sleek, glamorous and - some might argue - a little out of place in a country where two thirds of the population lives below the poverty line. But if that country is Swaziland - and the person behind the wheel, so t
WASHINGTON, Feb 2 (IPS) - On the eve of this week s Group of Seven (G-7) Finance Ministers meeting in London, U.S. development groups are calling on the George W. Bush administration to support full, unconditional, and immediate debt relief for more than three dozen of the world s poorest nations. Jubilee USA network,
BONN, Feb 2 (IPS) - We need the UN more than ever, says Nafis Sadik, an eminent member of the high-level panel on threats and challenges faced by the world body. Sadik served as executive director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) 1987 through 2000. She is now special envoy of UN Secretary-General Kofi Anna
KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 2 (IPS) - Last November Zu Lian, 22, from a tiny village in China s southern Yunnan province and five colleagues pricked their fingers, dipped a toothpick in the blood and wrote a dramatic note to a Malaysian Chinese politician begging him to intervene and free them from an immigration detention camp
PORT OF SPAIN, Feb 1 (IPS) - It is considered the most economically well-off country in the English-speaking Caribbean. But Trinidad and Tobago s oil wealth does not change the fact that the twin-island state still grapples with the same socioeconomic problems confronting its poorer neighbours.
MAPUTO, Jan 28 (IPS) - The tall man is skeletal. Even so, it is a huge feat for him to muster up the energy to sit upright in front of his visitor - a young, vibrant woman. They sit on wooden chairs around a small table in the centre of a starkly bare room. Lying on the table are a wall clock and several packets of pil
NAIROBI, Jan 27 (IPS) - Just 338 days. That is the amount of time that remained, Thursday, to meet the World Health Organisation s goal of getting millions of HIV-positive people in developing countries on anti-retroviral treatment by the end of the year. This goal is articulated in the 3 by 5 initiative, launched in D
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 26 (IPS) - Within three weeks after the tsunami disaster ravaged south and south-east Asia, the international donor community responded magnanimously by pledging an unprecedented 5.5 billion to 6 billion dollars for emergency relief and reconstruction. By a coincidence, says U.N. Special Envoy Steph
BROOKLIN, Canada , Jan 25 (IPS) - World hunger can be cut in half in a single decade for a mere 60 cents per month for every person living in a developed country, say two renowned scientists heading the United Nations task force on hunger. It s peanuts compared to other big expenditures such as the war in
PHNOM PENH, Jan 25 (IPS/TerraViva) - A foul muddy track - with garbage piled up high on either side -- is the only access to the Phnom Penh Thmei squatter community, built on a swamp on the fringe of the Cambodian capital. Money is scarce in this community of 42 families. Unemployment is rife among the men, many of who
WASHINGTON, Jan 21 (IPS) - President George W. Bush faces a difficult challenge in rallying U.S. public opinion behind his clarion call for spreading freedom and democracy abroad, according to a number of surveys published over the last two years. Those polls show that the general public is, if anything, less inclined
MBABANE, Jan 21 (IPS) - In May last year, IPS reported that teachers in Swaziland were at loggerheads with government over the delicate matter of admitting AIDS orphans to schools free of charge. With the new academic year looming, has the situation improved? Certainly, Education Minister Constance Simelane is making a
ROME, Jan 21 (IPS) - Of the wide range of strategies identified for combating world poverty, the promotion of microcredits -- and other forms of financing for people with limited resources in developing countries -- has proven to be a highly effective tool, say experts from international agencies. In fact, the success
CASTRIES, St. Lucia, Jan 21 (IPS) - The pilot project had been developed by the World Bank principally for sub-Saharan Africa, but last month, a survey to measure satisfaction with basic human needs was used in St. Lucia, making it the first Caribbean country in which the exercise was carried out. Director of Statistic
JOHANNESBURG, Jan 20 (IPS) - Civil society groups and anti-debt campaigners in Africa have cautiously welcomed a British proposal for the debt of Africa s poorest states to be cancelled. It s a good start for a G8 member like Britain, said Charles Mutasa, a research and policy analysis programme officer at the Harare-b
NAIROBI, Jan 18 (IPS) - While a decade may seem a substantial amount of time to some, it is all too short for those who are pushing to have the Millennium Development Goals realised. The prospects for achieving the goals (or MDGs) appear especially bleak for sub-Saharan Africa, Kenya being a case in point. Un
BRUSSELS, Jan 18 (IPS) - The EU could set the pace towards achieving the millennium development goals, leading development experts say. If the European Union says let s get on with achieving the goals, there s a real chance for a response from the rest of the world, Jeffrey Sachs, director of the United Nations Millen
PARIS, Jan 17 (IPS) - After the race to give more and more to tsunami victims comes a test of the opposite; who will be among the first to say that enough is enough. The French group Medicines sans Frontieres (MsF) was among the first non-governmental organisations to stop collecting donations for people hit by the tsu
COTONOU, Jan 16 (IPS) - For International Action Against Female Genital Mutilation, a German group active in Benin and other African countries, 2005 will be a year in which past successes in the fight against mutilation are celebrated - and efforts to eradicate it continue with renewed vigour. A No More Excisions
WASHINGTON, Jan 12 (IPS) - The Bush administration s war on terrorism has diverted the world s attention from the deeper roots of global insecurity, according to the latest edition of Worldwatch Institute s annual State of the World report, which calls poverty, disease and environmental decline the true axis of evil .
GENEVA, Jan 12 (IPS) - This is an ideal moment to appeal to the generosity of the international community, said United Nations emergency relief coordinator Jan Egeland, as he launched an appeal for 1.7 billion dollars to help meet the needs of 26 million people around the world. Egeland was speaking at a U.N.-sponsored
RUILI, China , Jan 10 (IPS) - It is a cold winter s night, but the women are out walking in this frontier town in south-western China, near the border with Burma . One woman approaches a man she spots, and whispers something to him, before walking to the traffic lights and sitting alone. Occasionally, one hears voices
PORT LOUIS, Mauritius , Jan 9 (IPS) - Small Islands, Big Stakes , goes the slogan of the day in the capital of this sun-baked, rain-swept Indian Ocean island-nation. It could have spoken of Big Problems too, that will be addressed by some 2,000 delegates converging here for what some participants call a make-or-break
BRUSSELS, Jan 6 (IPS) - As donations for the Indian Ocean tsunami disaster continue to rise, development experts are hoping that the generosity shown by governments and citizens will mark a new beginning in the fight against poverty. In a year when poverty reduction is set to dominate the international agenda, they are
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 5 (IPS) - The tsunami disaster that claimed the lives of over 150,000 people in south and southeast Asia is also threatening to derail the U.N. s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) -- including a lofty plan to reduce by half the number of people living in poverty worldwide. There is a big risk that
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