Wambi Michael
KAMPALA, Sep 23 2008 (IPS) – Producing baskets and mats in central Uganda has traditionally been women s work. Women made these items for use in homes. The National Association of Women Organisations in Uganda (NAWOU) has changed this practice into a powerful force fighting poverty.
Improving lives: Artisans Rose Sanyu (left) and Milly Kinene. Credit: Wambi Michael/IPS
The organisation has a big crafts collection centre in the east African country s capital of Ka…
Daniela Estrada
SANTIAGO, Nov 13 2008 (IPS) – Chilean Health Minister Álvaro Erazo reported Thursday that 512 people who tested positive for HIV were not notified by the public health system.
He acknowledged there were problems and announced several measures to confront the health emergency.
The measures will work as long as the necessary resources are available, Patricio Novoa, of Vivo Positivo (Living Positive), an umbrella group linking 30 non-governmental organisations, told IPS. What is needed here is training for many people, and the hiring of services.
On Thursday, Minister Erazo presented the national report on the state of the situation of confirmed HIV/AIDS cases 2004-2008 to the health committee of the lower house of Congress, which the committee…
BRUSSELS, Jan 8 2009 (IPS) – Extreme poverty will continue to blight sub-Saharan Africa for another 200 years unless action to overcome it is intensified, a new report has suggested.
Social Watch, a network of campaigning groups, has devised a measure known as the basic capabilities index to assess the level of hardship throughout the world.
Its latest report finds that 80 countries home to half the world s population fare badly when three criteria are examined: the number of children who die before their fifth birthday, the proportion of children who complete primary education, and the proportion of births that are attended by trained midwives or other medical professionals.
Only 16 of these countries have registered considerable improvement since 2000. Although th…
Dahr Jamail
BAGHDAD, Feb 21 2009 (IPS) – Seventy percent of Iraq s doctors are reported to have fled the war-torn country in the face of death threats and kidnappings. Those who remain live in fear, often in conditions close to house arrest.
Dr. Thana Hekmaytar Credit: Dahr Jamail
I was threatened I would be killed because I was working for the Iraqi government at the Medical City, Dr. Thana Hekmaytar told IPS. Baghdad Medical City is the largest medical complex in the country.
Dr. Hekmaytar, a head and neck surgeon, has now been practising at the Saint Raphael Hospital in Baghdad for …
Patricia Grogg
HAVANA, Mar 30 2009 (IPS) – You could hear a pin drop and uncomfortable glances went round the room when the moderator of the debate invited contributions from the floor. A law student finally broke the silence, appealing for education to be a two-way street, so that homosexuals can help us to accept them.
Perhaps unintentionally, the law student, Bárbara García, really broke the ice. The men and women who had spoken up to defend their sexual orientation against prejudice and misunderstanding had shown those present a reality that perhaps many considered alien to their experience, had no knowledge of, or knew of only in a distorted way.
There are people who commit suicide because of their sexual orientation. We are not even going to talk about lesbi…
Louise Redvers
LUANDA, Apr 29 2009 (IPS) – Teresa Barros problems started last year with the death of her baby.
OMA advisor Odelina de Almeida speaks to survivors of domestic violence outside a support centre in Angola. Credit: Louise Redvers/IPS
Our youngest daughter died, Barros (38) explained. My husband blames me, and now he drinks a lot and picks fights and makes confusion.
My …
Matthew Berger
NEW YORK, May 28 2009 (IPS) – Bruce Brown died of cancer at age 18. Some of Marilyn Kissinger s other friends lived into their early and late twenties, dying in the late 1960s. Most had died by the late 1980s.
Doreen Thomas says her friends and family lasted until their forties and sixties, but everybody s household was full of cancer. The people who didn t have internal cancer, we had outside cancer. I ve had 11 [tumors] removed.
Thomas had moved to Enniskillen, New Brunswick, in 1953. Two years later, the Canadian military started spraying Agent Orange and other chemicals at nearby Canadian Forces Base Gagetown, and kept doing so until at least 1984.
In 1964, four years after Kissinger s family moved to Oromocto, where the base is headquarter…
Miriam Mannak
CAPE TOWN, Jul 31 2009 (IPS) – A global call to put people living with HIV on antiretroviral therapy (ART) at an earlier stage of their illness is intensifying, but most developing countries, especially in Africa, are struggling to meet the current recommendations.
Youth run testing ce…
Cam McGrath
CAIRO, Aug 23 2009 (IPS) – Muslims marked the start of the fasting month of Ramadan Saturday, but the global H1N1 pandemic has put a damper on religious festivities throughout the Middle East.
Everyone is worried about swine flu, says Anwar Mohamed, a Yemeni antique dealer. We have been told to avoid crowds, but everywhere there are crowds.
Arab governments have taken measures aimed at reducing the spread and impact of the H1N1 virus, which has infected over 5,000 people in the region, and killed at least 30. Authorities have implemented border surveillance, quarantine procedures and swine flu awareness campaigns. They have also sought to restrict activities that draw large crowds, including religious gatherings and pilgrimages.
As Islam s holies…
Kristin Palitza interviews HENRY MALUMA, Oxfam Zambia essential services coordinator
CAPE TOWN, Sep 30 2009 (IPS) – A United Nations mid-point review of Zambia s efforts towards reaching the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), released in September, has revealed that HIV/AIDS might prevent the southern African country from meeting the targets.
HIV prevents many Zambian children from attending school. Credit: Kristin Palitza/IPS
The HIV pandemic has had devastating effects on all aspects o…