KARACHI, Jan 29 2012 (IPS) – It was a dark and dingy room, where an elderly woman asked me to take off my panties, made me sit on a low wooden stool with my legs parted and then did something…I screamed out in pain, recalls Alefia Mustansir, 40, of her childhood experience.
A Bohra woman in traditional costume. Credit: Fahim Siddiqi/IPS
Her friend, Sakina Haider, remembers putting up a good fight before she succumbed. I was told by my grandmother that I was being taken to the doctor to address burning in the genital area when soap went there…
Mangroves and seawall employed to defend local infrastructure against sea level rise and coastal erosion in Collingwood Bay, Papua New Guinea. Credit: Mama Graun Conservation Trust Fund
LAE, Papua New Guinea, May 22 2012 (IPS) – Sea level rise near Papua New Guinea, a Small Island Developing State (SIDS) in the southwest Pacific, is estimated at seven millimetres per year, double the global annual average of 2.8-3.6 mm.
In a bottom-up approach to fighting climate change, the indigenous use of mangroves is now leading local and national plans to stem the destruction of land and communities by coastal flooding and erosion.
As global warming melts i…
Displaced Palestinians gather at a United Nations school in Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip, Aug. 26, 2014. Families found refuge after fleeing their homes in an area under heavy aerial bombardment in the besieged Palestinian territory. Credit: UN Photo/Shareef Sarhan
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 13 2014 (IPS) – When the international pledging conference to rebuild a devastated Gaza ended in Cairo over the weekend the third such conference in less than six years the lingering question among donors was: is this the last of it or are there more assaults to come?
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon implicitly warned of the futility of the continuing exercise when he said: We c…
SYDNEY & KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 22 2019 (IPS) – Despite all the , and substantial opposition from community groups, public-private partnerships (PPPs) are still being promoted to deliver sustainable development.
Public-private hospital partnerships are supposed to ensure that the private sector will offer much needed efficiency in healthcare provision.
Anis Chowdhury
However, any government considering healthcare PPPs should be aware of the Australian experience, especially after what has happened with the Northern Beaches Hospital, a PPP between the New South Wales government and Healthscope.
The A$600m facility was officially opened with much fanfa…