RIO DE JANEIRO, Dec 14 2012 (IPS) – The cyclists riding in the bicycle lanes along the beachfront avenue of this Brazilian city pass the car drivers stuck in rush hour traffic.
The Rio de Janeiro city authorities are encouraging this simple, cheap and non-polluting solution for the growing problems of urban transport.
The sight of commuters on bicycles is increasingly common in Rio because of strong economic growth, easy credit and incentives designed to boost auto sales.
Bicycling in Rio de Janeiro. Credit: Courtesy of ITDP
I sold my car because it was so difficult to park, parking lot…
WASHINGTON, Mar 5 2013 (IPS) – Civil society opposition here has strengthened against a U.S.-proposed free trade zone that would include some dozen countries around the Pacific Rim.
As negotiators head into a 16th round of talks this week in Singapore, around 400 organisations are urging the U.S. Congress to demand greater transparency in the proceedings.
On Monday, the first day of the negotiations, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), a humanitarian group, called on President Barack Obama’s administration to “end its stall tactics and revise its proposals for what otherwise promises to be the most harmful trade deal ever for access to medicines in developing countries.”Look at who has a seat at the table, with the public shut out and more than 600 corporate lobbyists.…
In this column, Roberto Savio, founder and president emeritus of the Inter Press Service (IPS) news agency and publisher of Other News, writes that Europe’s insistence on austerity is wasting a generation by creating “disastrous” levels of unemployment. How many crises do we have to bear, Savio asks, before regulations eliminate risks from the banks and they are confined to the world of speculation?
ROME, Apr 24 2013 (IPS) – For a long time it was a given that while Europe was based on defending a more just society, with social values and solidarity, the United States was based on the glory of individualism and competition, and anything public was considered “socialist”.
The urgent task of reducing dangerous levels of air pollution in large urban centres cannot be achieved without proper monitoring and measurement of air quality.
A neighbourhood in southern Mexico City, where visibility is limited because of the smog. Credit: Emilio Godoy/IPS
MEXICO CITY, Jun 23 2013 (IPS) – Mexican cities with populations of more than 500,000 face serious obstacles in monitoring air quality and reducing air pollution, but as of July local authorities will be required to do both, and to submit mandatory reports on their efforts to the federal government.
The new requirements that will soon enter into effect were approved by the Mexican …
This is the second in a three-part series on Kwa-Zulu Natal’s Umgeni River
South Africa’s 232-kilometre Umgeni River is clean upstream but the closer it gets to the sea, the dirtier it becomes. Credit: Brendon Bosworth/IPS
HOWICK, South Africa , Aug 14 2013 (IPS) – Over the course of a 28-day trek down South Africa’s Umgeni River, which flows from the pristine wetlands of the Umgeni Vlei Nature Reserve to the Durban coastline, Penny Rees, a coordinator for the Duzi uMngeni Conservation Trust, witnessed the polar opposites of river health.
The is a nonprofit organisation that works to conserve the and its tributary, the Msunduzi river. At the Umgeni Ri…
This is the second in a three-part series on Tanzania’s Pangani River Basin
Pangani Basin Water Board officials Arafa Maggidi (green shirt) and Lillian Mkongo (seated) collected water samples to measure salinity at one of the tributaries of Pangani River in September 2013. Credit: Kizito Makoye/IPS
PANGANI, Tanzania, Oct 22 2013 (IPS) – The freshwater drinking supply of the coastal town of Pangani in northeast Tanzania is becoming increasingly contaminated as salt water steadily seeps in from the Indian Ocean.
The 500 km Pangani River and underground aquifers are the main sources of drinking water for thousands of residents in Pangani town, located about 400k…
Alfonso Ramos (left) shows a newspaper reporting the death of his sister Celia in Piura due to forced sterilisation. Micaela Flores (centre) and Sabina Huillca are sterilisation victims from Cusco. All three have been waiting for justice for 17 years. Credit: Milagros Salazar/IPS
LIMA, Feb 3 2014 (IPS) – Shelving the case of the forced sterilisations of more than 2,000 women in Peru during the Alberto Fujimori regime was a surprise move by the prosecutor in charge. What happened? An IPS investigation found that legal avenues to pursue justice have not been exhausted.
On Jan. 24, prosecutor Marco Guzmán announced an end to the investigation of forced sterilisations car…
Ethiopians waiting inside a hospital in Addis Ababa on the weekend. The capital has only four stationary MRI scanners, providing services to 30 government- and private-run hospitals. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS
ADDIS ABABA, Apr 3 2014 (IPS) – For a while now, Magnetic Resonance Imaging or MRI scanners have typically been a luxury that both government and private hospitals in Ethiopia have struggled to afford to purchase for in-house use.
Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital with an ever-growing population of around 3.8 million, currently has only four stationary MRI scanners that provide services to 30 government and private hospitals, according to Zelalem Molla, a surgeon based …
IDPs in Jabal Al-Akrad, in Syria’s Latakia region. Credit: Shelly Kittleson/IPS
REYHANLI (TURKEY), May 19 2014 (IPS) – As once-eliminated diseases resurface and barrel bombs and alleged chlorine attacks target civilians, doctors in rebel-held areas and across the border struggle with issues of how best to serve their profession.
Up to , according to the World Health Organization, and many of the country’s medical facilities have been destroyed or heavily damaged by regime air strikes.
‘’Even blood bags are controlled by the ministry of defense…You go to jail if they find you with one” — Dr. Omar
Though regime and opposition fighters …
Students from Great Horizon Secondary School in Uganda’s rural Kyakayege village pose proudly with their re-usable menstrual pads after a reproductive health presentation at their school. Credit: Amy Fallon/IPS
KAMPALA, Aug 15 2014 (IPS) – When Peninah Mamayi got her period last January, she was scared, confused and embarrassed. But like thousands of other girls in the developing world who experience menarche having no idea what menstruation is, Mamayi, who lives with her sister-in-law in a village in Tororo, eastern Uganda, kept quiet.
“When I went to the toilet I had blood on my knickers,” she told IPS. “I was wondering what was coming out and I was so scared…