The Empire State Building viewed at night. Credit: NLNY/cc by 2.0
UXBRIDGE, Canada, Mar 19 2013 (IPS) – As usual, midtown Manhattan is packed with whisper-quiet cars and trams while thousands walk the streets listening to the birds of spring sing amongst the gleaming, grime-free skyscrapers in the crystal-clear morning air.
Welcome to New York City in April 2030.I think the public will be 100 percent behind this, if they know about it.
This is not a fantasy. It is a perfectly doable goal, said Stanford University energy expert Mark Jacobson. In fact, the entire state of New York could be powered by wind, water and sunlight based on a detailed plan Jac…
One of the students at the Gymnasia Herzliya School checks on the plastic bottles containing samples of a blue-green algae called Spirulina. Credit: Pierre Klochendler/IPS
TEL AVIV, May 12 2013 (IPS) – At the Gymnasia Herzliya School in Tel Aviv, 20 ninth and tenth graders are testing the simplest, cheapest and fastest way to solve the problem of malnutrition among their peers around the world.
Under the guidance of their principal and biology teacher, these Israeli teenagers are attempting to breed a blue-green algae called spirulina, widely believed to contain a array of vitamins, minerals and nutrients.
Fourteen-yea…
SKOPJE, Macedonia , Jul 12 2013 (IPS) – A “virus” of restrictive abortion legislation is spreading from Eastern Europe, health experts and rights campaigners have said, amid Church pressure and misguided government attempts to stop falling birth rates.
Just weeks ago a new law was introduced in Macedonia tightening up relatively liberal abortion legislation which had been followed for more than 40 years. And last month, Lithuanian lawmakers gave initial approval to some of strictest abortion legislation in the world.
Tighter abortion laws are also being considered in Russia and the Ukraine while the Georgian parliament is expected to debate abortion laws after the country’s Orthodox Church made calls in May for it to be banned.
Critics say that some governm…
Paediatrics waiting room in Albert Schweitzer Hospital, Rio de Janeiro. Credit: Agencia Brasil Marcello Casal Jr/EBr
RIO DE JANEIRO, Aug 23 2013 (IPS) – Brazil plans to import doctors to provide healthcare in poor suburbs of large cities, impoverished regions of the interior and border areas. But is there really a shortage of doctors in this country?
Dr. Pedro Henrique Grezele was 24 years old and fresh out of med school when he enlisted in the army in 2010. He chose the Amazon region to put into practice the medical knowledge he had acquired at the University of the State of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ).
He engaged in many missions in the Amazon jungle, boating u…
The Agbogbloshie e-Wasteland in Ghana. Fires are set to wires and other electronics to release valuable copper and other materials. The fires blacken the landscape, releasing toxic fumes. Credit: Blacksmith Institute
UXBRIDGE, Canada, Nov 5 2013 (IPS) – Parts of Indonesia, Argentina and Nigeria are among the top 10 most polluted places on the planet, according to a new report by U.S. and European environmental groups.
They are extraordinarily toxic places where lifespans are short and disease runs rampant among millions of people who live and work at these sites, often to provide the products used in richer countries.
People would be shocked to see the condit…
“Area of sacrifice” – a sign put up by local residents in Bouwer, Argentina to protest the garbage and toxic waste dumped in their town. Credit: Courtesy of Bouwer Sin Basura
BOUWER, Argentina , Dec 16 2013 (IPS) – Towns traditionally celebrate their most characteristic aspect. So the town of Bouwer in central Argentina decided to “celebrate” garbage.
But the “first provincial festival of pollution and against discrimination” is not a reason for pride, but a mechanism of resistance by a town that wants to stop being “an area of environmental sacrifice” in the central province of Córdoba.
In the festival, to be held Feb. 22 in this working…
Despite hurdles in trade, Indian medicines find their way usefully into Pakistan. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS.
PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Feb 26 2014 (IPS) – They are contraband, yet a large number of Pakistanis have come to depend on drugs made in India and smuggled into Pakistan. Patients as well as doctors say these are cheap and effective, even as law enforcers look the other way.
The two countries do not have a trade agreement on drugs, but markets in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in the north of Pakistan do brisk business in India-made medicines that are sold over the counter.“We are aware of huge stocks of medicine being smuggled into Pakistan from Afghanistan but …
Air and chemical pollution are growing rapidly in the developing world with dire consequences for health, says Richard Fuller, president of the Pure Earth/Blacksmith Institute. Credit: Bigstock
UXBRIDGE, Canada, Jun 13 2014 (IPS) – Pollution, not disease, is the biggest killer in the developing world, taking the lives of more than 8.4 million people each year, a new analysis shows. That’s almost three times the deaths caused by malaria and fourteen times those caused by HIV/AIDs. However, pollution receives a fraction of the interest from the global community.
“Toxic sites along with air and water pollution impose a tremendous burden on the health systems of developing countr…
BERLIN, Jul 18 2014 (IPS) – Attempts to genetically modify food staples, such as crops and cattle, to increase their nutritional value and overall performance have prompted world-wide criticism by environmental, nutritionists and agriculture experts, who say that protecting and fomenting biodiversity is a far better solution to hunger and malnutrition.
Two cases have received world-wide attention: one is a project to genetically modify bananas, the other is an international bull genome project.
In June, the Bill Melinda Gates Foundation announced that it has allocated some 10 million dollars to finance an Australian research team at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT), vitamin A-enriched bananas in Uganda, by genetically modifying the fruit.
On the oth…
This is the first of a two-part series on incorporating disaster risk reduction into the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Fisherfolk are one of the most vulnerable groups of people in India. Credit: Malini Shankar/IPS
NAGAPATTINAM, India, Aug 31 2014 (IPS) – As the United Nations gears up to launch its newest set of poverty-reduction targets to replace the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 2015, the words ‘sustainable development’ have been on the lips of policymakers the world over.
In southern India, home to over a million fisherfolk, efforts to strengthen disaster resilience and simultaneously improve livelihoods for impoverishe…