Abid Aslam
WASHINGTON, Feb 15 2008 (IPS) – In an attempt to polish his image and advance U.S. interests in the twilight of his presidency, George W. Bush is visiting Africa.
Bush s second visit to the continent takes him to Benin, Tanzania, Rwanda, Ghana, and Liberia. Officials and commentators say the U.S. enjoys high regard in these countries assuring Bush a warm welcome.
While there, Bush will tout the reasons for this goodwill.
The trip will highlight how the United States has partnered closely with the people of Africa to address the challenges of disease, poverty and security, said Stephen Hadley, Bush s national security adviser.
There s more hope in Africa and the American people can be proud that many of our innovative programmes are making …
Dalia Acosta
PINAR DEL RIO, Cuba, Mar 17 2008 (IPS) – Activism against AIDS is uniting a group of transvestites and crossdressers in western Cuba in a project that is going beyond peer education and making inroads into the world of culture.
The time has come to take us seriously. We are in a position to demand our place in society, to contribute to AIDS prevention through our art, and to be respected for our abilities and knowledge, a Cuban transvestite, whose artistic name is that of Mexican actress and singer Ninel Conde, told IPS.
I never felt so sure of myself as I do now. When I used to dress in male clothes, I would always hang my head. Since I put on a pair of high heels, I have felt proud of being who I am. I began to be happy with myself, and I walk down th…
Marcela Valente
BUENOS AIRES, Apr 28 2008 (IPS) – An ambitious new programme for training health agents to help reduce infant mortality in small rural communities and indigenous villages, launched by one of Argentina s best-known human rights groups, drew many more applicants than the organisers had hoped for.
We expected 500 people to register, but we had to expand the programme to 800, and many health professionals even signed up, Oscar Natalichio, extension secretary at the Popular University of the Asociación Madres de Plaza de Mayo, told IPS.
The University was created by the Madres (Mothers) of Plaza de Mayo, a group founded during Argentina s 1976-1983 dictatorship to demand that their sons and daughters, who were disappeared by the military regime, be return…
Marwaan Macan-Markar
BANGKOK, Jun 6 2008 (IPS) – A global human rights lobby slammed Burma s military regime for driving survivors who have endured untold hardship since last month s powerful cyclone into further misery.
Villagers making a shelter for a house in the Poeshangyi village in the Day Da Ye township. Credit: Moe Yu May/IPS
The junta in Burma, or Myanmar, has forced cyclone victims out of temporary shelters, confiscated aid, and…
Aaron Glantz*
SAN FRANCISCO, Jul 4 2008 (IPS) – You could hear the joy in Patrick Campbell s voice as he reflected on U.S. President George W. Bush s signing Monday of a new GI Bill of Rights for veterans returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan.
It s hard to actually picture that it s done, the legislative director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America told IPS. There are veterans all across this country and in Iraq and Afghanistan who are dreaming bigger dreams now. When we were in Iraq we were always talking about what we were going to do when we got home and I know that now they re over there thinking I can go to any college I want to now. I can go to the best school I can get into not just the school that I can afford .
The new law, which is modeled on th…
Daniela Estrada
MEXICO CITY, Aug 4 2008 (IPS) – It is necessary to evaluate the current global architecture for responding to the AIDS epidemic, move forward with studies on HIV rates, and implement effective prevention strategies, said the experts meeting at the 17th International AIDS Conference, which opened Sunday in Mexico.
The extraordinary mobilisation of economic and human resources against the HIV/AIDS pandemic has borne fruit, but efforts must be stepped up to continue fighting the disease, Mexican expert Jaime Sepúlveda said Monday, one of the plenary speakers at the first session, on the State of the Epidemic .
According to the 2008 Report on the Global AIDS Epidemic by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), an estimated 33 million peopl…
Yugendree Naidoo
CAPE TOWN, Sep 23 2008 (IPS) – In the impoverished informal settlement of Du Noon, 20 kilometres north of Cape Town, sick residents rely on a single clinic staffed by six nurses to meet their health needs.
Fifty-eight year old Oliver Lala waited 11 hours to get medication for his asthma. Credit: Brenda Nkuna/WCN
During one week in August, the nursing component of the clinic was reduced by 50 percent due to staff illness and trai…
Mirela Xanthaki
NEW YORK, Nov 14 2008 (IPS) – We each spend, on average, three years of our lives going to the toilet assuming we have one, that is.
Although bodily functions is a topic usually treated as off-limits, the fact that 2.6 billion people are without adequate sanitation facilities is something to be loudly talked about, development activists say.
Just as HIV/AIDS cannot be discussed without talking frankly about sex, so the problem of sanitation cannot be discussed without talking frankly about s**t, one Nepali sanitation activist says.
In her new book, The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why It Matters , the journalist Rose George embarks on a journey across the world to try to break taboos and erase the shame that accomp…
Mantoe Phakathi
MBABANE, Jan 9 2009 (IPS) – Every five minutes she gives a hacking cough. Ndlaleni Ndzinisa (70) says she has continuously suffered from tuberculosis for the past five years. Because she cannot afford to pay for transport to the nearest hospital, she has repeatedly failed to adhere to her tuberculosis (TB) treatment.
Ndzinisa s doctor, Franklin Ackom, says it is highly unusual that she has not been diagnosed with the difficult-to-treat, multi-drug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) and extremely-drug-resistant TB (XDR-TB), which are strains that are resistant to treatment by first-line and second-line drugs, including Isoniazid and Rifampicin.
It s against my will, said Ndzinisa, who lives in the small village of Lulakeni, in southern Swaziland. I cannot afford th…
Thalif Deen interviews SONG YOUNG-GON, head of the World Toilet Association
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 24 2009 (IPS) – As part of the International Year of Sanitation (IYS), the United Nations launched an aggressive campaign last year to fend off what it called a silent global crisis : the woeful lack of adequate sanitation in the world s poorest countries.
Song Young-Gon Credit:
But the U.N. s best efforts were still not good enough judging by the fact that over 40 percent of the global population 2.6 billion out of nearly 6.0 billion people still live without proper toilet facilities.
The problems continue to linger …