Thalif Deen
STOCKHOLM, Aug 25 2006 (IPS) – The world s future wars will be fought not over oil but water: an ominous prediction made by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the British ministry of defence and even by some officials of the World Bank.
The world s future wars will be fought not over oil but water: an ominous prediction made by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the British ministry of defence and even by some officials of the World Bank.
But experts and academics meeting at an international conference on water management in the Swedish capital are dismissing this prediction as unrealistic, far-fetched and nonsensical.
Water wars make good newspaper headlines but cooperation (agreements) don t, says Arunabha Ghosh, co-author of t…
Marcela Valente
BUENOS AIRES, Oct 25 2006 (IPS) – Officials in the Argentine government have thrown their support behind local residents and environmentalists in the western province of San Juan who are opposed to a mega-gold mining project in the Andes Mountains along the border with Chile due to the environmental risks it poses.
Because of that support, progress on the project has been temporarily suspended. President Néstor Kirchner himself traveled to San Juan this month, where he called for the continued development of the mining industry, but with respect for the environment..
His statement heartened local residents and farmers in the area, who had already voiced their concerns in a more than two-hour meeting with the secretary of the environment and sustainab…
Mario Osava
RIO DE JANEIRO, Nov 28 2006 (IPS) – A popular soap opera that portrays a mother in search of a school that will accept her daughter as just another student has sparked a public debate in Brazil on whether or not children with Down s syndrome should be enrolled in standard schools.
In Pages of Life , a prime time show on the Globo network, aired Monday to Saturday at 9 pm, Helena played by renowned actress Regina Duarte first has to fight for her adopted daughter not to be treated as special in an overly condescending way that does not allow her to test her limits, at her first school.
Then she faces rejection from other reputable schools, where head teachers claim they lack the expertise to accept disabled pupils.
Later, Helena meets another mother…
Daniela Estrada
SANTIAGO, Jan 9 2007 (IPS) – The hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica, where the ozone thins out every southern hemisphere springtime, is recovering for the time being, but all regions in Chile will receive extremely high levels of ultraviolet radiation this month.
The ozone layer is found all round the earth at an altitude of about 15 to 30 kilometres, and protects living things from the sun s harmful ultraviolet (UV) rays.
Every year, between September and November, the ozone layer thins out in a large area that includes the southern parts of Argentina and Chile, where UV radiation increases by 25 percent.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), th…
Julio Godoy
BREMEN, Germany, Mar 15 2007 (IPS) – The European Union (EU) must substantially increase financial resources for research on a vaccine against the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) which causes AIDS, leading non- governmental activists say.
Ann Katrin Akalin, spokesperson of the German AIDS Foundation, says the EU is contributing only six percent of the world s total public financing for research on a vaccine. This is too little, Akalin told IPS.
The International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) estimates that about 1.2 billion dollars are needed yearly for financing the research, Akalin said. As late as 2005, only 760 million dollars were available for this research.
In all 88 percent of this money was channeled by governments, mostly the United…
Pilirani Semu-Banda
BLANTYRE, Apr 17 2007 (IPS) – Five years after the famine in which more than 1,000 Malawians died and 8 million of the country s 12 million people suffered from hunger, the bitter memory of bad policy advice still lingers on.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank were blamed for the tragedy that hit Malawi during the 2002 famine. The international human rights organisation Action Aid, for instance, indicated in a report in October 2002 that the IMF had instructed the Malawian government to sell the strategic grain reserve to repay a debt incurred by the statutory National Food Reserve Agency (NFRA).
The report, State of disaster: Causes, consequences and policy lessons from Malawi , also mentioned the World Bank. Action Aid blame…
Amina Barakat
NOUAKCHOTT, May 24 2007 (IPS) – Excess weight on women has long been considered something to aspire to in Mauritania, where it serves as a symbol of beauty and wealth. But, it appears these views are being called into question as awareness spreads of the health risks they entail for girls who are force fed to make them gain the desired weight.
Women risk developing serious cardiovascular problems, hypertension and diabetes. In instances of pregnancy, they suffer still more, and their babies with them, Fall Ould Abri, who heads up a medical practice in the capital of Nouakchott, told IPS.
Fortunately, this practice is in the process of disappearing.
Sociologist Aoua Ly-Tall reaches similar conclusions in her publication Force Feeding, a Practice…
Daniel Luban
WASHINGTON, Jul 26 2007 (IPS) – A nutritional supplement known as Sprinkles, which is a simple powder that parents can easily add to their children #39s food, reduces childhood anaemia by more than half, according to a recent study published in the Journal of Nutrition.
Packets of Sprinkles in different languages. Credit: Sprinkles Global Health Initiative
The study, conducted in rural Haiti by a team based at Cornell University in the United States and the International Food Polic…
Steven Lang
JOHANNESBURG, Aug 24 2007 (IPS) – Raw sewage flowing into Lake Chrissie is threatening to turn South Africa s largest natural freshwater body into a massive cesspool. Environmentalists claim that for seven years, local authorities ignored their pleas to upgrade water treatment facilities; officials only took action, they say, when local revenue was affected by the closure of tourism routes such as biking trails, as a result of pollution.
An eco-attraction at risk of ecological disaster. Credit: Gerhard Rhee…
Aaron Glantz
WASHINGTON, Sep 26 2007 (IPS) – On Mar. 19, 2004 Corporal Justin Bunce was on patrol in the Iraqi city of Husayba on the Syrian border when a bomb exploded in the wall of a cemetery.
The blast sent shrapnel into nearly every part of his body and knocked Bunce into a coma for four days. When he was airlifted to Landschtul military hospital in Germany, doctors found that some of the shrapnel had lodged in the left frontal lobe of his brain.
Because of my injury, making new memories is hard as hell, Bunce, now 25, told a recent gathering on war and brain damage in Washington. I ve been leaving myself a dozen voice mails every day.
More than 4,000 U.S. veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan have been diagnosed with traumatic brain injury, most often from …