A confined field trial of genetically modified cowpeas in Ghana. Credit: Albert Oppong-Ansah/IPS
SAVELUGU, Ghana, Dec 26 2013 (IPS) – A battle over genetically modified organisms (GMOs) is building in Ghana after the government recently completed regulations that could allow modified cowpeas and other selected crops to be grown following confined field trials (CFT).
Civil society groups and at least one opposition party have positioned themselves to fight against the introduction of GMOs.”The state should support sustainable farming by providing the necessary resources, infrastructure and enough technical personnel.” — Dr. Wilson Dogbe
The BT Cowpea …
A MDR-TB patient at a Médecins Sans Frontières clinic in Manipur in north-eastern India. Credit: Bijoyeta Das/IPS.
NEW DELHI, Mar 5 2014 (IPS) – For years Joba Hemron, 50, prayed that her cough would go away. She was diagnosed with Tuberculosis (TB) in 2011. She was put on a Directly Observed Treatment Short-course (DOTS), provided free at a public health clinic in Bongaigaon district in Assam.
But soon she began missing too many doses. “My sons work in the fields, I was too weak to go on my own to get the pills,” she says. She went to a private clinic, hoping to collect all the medicines at once. That was expensive, which meant she could again not complete the…
Poor families in Egypt consider circumcision a way to preserve the chastity of girls. Credit: Amr Diab/IPS.
CAIRO, Apr 27 2014 (IPS) – Saber Abd El-Mawgoud began his career castrating sheep and goats before moving on to humans. His first human experiment was a young boy he attempted to circumcise back in 1999 at the insistence of the boy’s father.
The boy died a few days later of infection from the operation, Mawgoud, 67, from the Al-Monofiya governorate 60 km north of Cairo, tells IPS.The practice continues even after female genital mutilation was outlawed in 2007 after an 11-year-old girl died in a private clinic while undergoing the operation.
Mawgou…
A family from Central African Republic who fled to Cameroon’s East Region after the 2013 coup d’état that ousted President François Bozizé. Credit: Monde Kingsley Nfor/IPS
GUIWA, Cameroon, Jun 24 2014 (IPS) – Central African Republic refugees living in Cameroon’s East Region are increasingly becoming frustrated about their deteriorating living conditions and their inability to support themselves as conflict between them and and local villagers has escalated over depleting resources.
They say they have been denied access to farm tools as aid agencies fear they may use them as arms against the local population.
Clay-Man Youkoute, head of refu…
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 24 2014 (IPS) – As successive Human Development Reports have shown, most people in most countries are doing better in human development. Globalisation, advances in technology and higher incomes all hold promise for longer, healthier, more secure lives.
But there is also a widespread sense of precariousness in the world today. Improvements in living standards can quickly be undermined by a natural disaster or economic slump. Political threats, community tensions, crime and environmental damage all contribute to individual and community vulnerability.
The 2014 Report, on vulnerability and resilience, shows that human development progress is slowing down and is increasingly precarious. Globalisation, for instance, which has brought benefits to many, has …
As one of the Ebola epicentres, the district of Kailahun, in eastern Sierra Leone bordering Guinea, was put under quarantine at the beginning of August. Credit: ©EC/ECHO/Cyprien Fabre
WASHINGTON, Sep 8 2014 (IPS) – The U.S. military over the weekend formally began to support the international response to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.
Advocates of the move, including prominent voices in global health, are lauding the Pentagon’s particularly robust logistical capacities, which nearly all observers say are desperately needed as the epidemic expands at an increasing rate.On Monday, the United Nations warned of an “exponential increase” in cases in coming weeks.
Some 60 major U.S. food retailers have already pledged not to sell GE salmon. Credit: Kevin Galens/cc by 2.0
WASHINGTON, Oct 29 2014 (IPS) – Officials in Panama have fined the local facility of a U.S. biotechnology company for a series of permitting and regulatory failures around a pioneering attempt to create genetically modified salmon.
The experiments are being carried out by researchers for AquaBounty Technologies, which currently has an application with the U.S. government to sell genetically modified (GM) salmon filets in this country. If regulators approve that application, AquaBounty’s salmon would be the first genetically modified meat sold for human consumpti…
Children are bearing the brunt of the drought in Tharparkar, often the first to fall victim to diarrhoea and pneumonia brought on by malnutrition. Credit: Irfan Ahmed/IPS
MITHI, Pakistan, Jan 3 2015 (IPS) – The main entrance to the Civil Hospital in Mithi, headquarters of the Tharparkar district in Pakistan’s southern Sindh Province, is blocked by a couple of men clad in traditional dress and turbans. They are trying to console a woman who is sobbing so heavily she has to gasp for breath.
She lost her two-year-old son just moments ago and these men, both relations of hers, were the ones to carry the child into the hospital where doctors tried – and failed –…
The recent epidemic of chikungunya in the Caribbean has been attributed in part to indiscriminate dumping of household garbage, as in this street in Curepe, Trinidad, thus providing breeding ground for mosquitoes that thrive under hot and wet conditions. Credit: Jewel Fraser/IPS
TRINIDAD, Feb 20 2015 (IPS) – Jenny had gone to bed feeling well, but an hour into her sleep she suddenly awoke with a “stiff, cramping pain” behind one knee. Within the next hour the pains had multiplied and both knees began to lock, followed by stiffened fingers and pains in her chest, along with a fever.
Jenny Gittens, 61, described her experience with chikungunya over the next tw…
Dr. Kirsten Stoebenau is a Gender and Population Specialist at the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW).
Girls who report that their domestic chores interfere with their schooling are three times more likely to drop out. Credit: Zofeen Ebrahim/IPS
WASHINGTON, Mar 25 2015 (IPS) – Earlier this month, the Barack Obama administration announced a new initiative designed to improve girls’ education around the world. Dubbed “Let Girls Learn,” the programme builds on current progress made, such as ensuring girls…