Kalinga Seneviratne
COLOMBO, Feb 7 2006 (IPS) – A Buddhist monk, who tabled a bill in the Sri Lankan parliament to control the sale of tobacco and alcohol, says he is gratified at the wide support he has received in a country known for the deep divisions among its ethnic and religious communities.
Omalphe Sobitha, parliamentarian representing the pro-Sinhalese Buddhist National Heritage Party (JHU), believes that his private member s bill might even help his party shed its extremist image .
We have been labelled extremist, but, now JHU is not extremist or Sinhala chauvinist, but acting on the behalf of all ethnic and religious groups. The Christians, Muslims and Hindus are all supporting our bill, he told IPS in an interview. We brought this (bill) to save our people…
Roberto Villar Belmonte
CURITIBA, Brazil, Mar 13 2006 (IPS) – The third meeting of the parties to the global biosafety treaty kicked off Monday in this southern Brazilian city on a certain note of mystery: the 800 negotiators and observers from 116 countries still have no idea what the host country s position is on the most controversial issue to be negotiated at this gathering: the labelling of transgenic products.
The Brazilian government is deeply divided on whether to back the wording contains LMOs (living modified organisms) or may contain LMOs for labels on cross-border shipments.
Brazilian Environment Minister Marina Silva was discussing the matter with President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brasilia, the capital, more than 1,300 km from Curitiba, where the fi…
Suvendrini Kakuchi
TOKYO, Apr 13 2006 (IPS) – A government plan to boost Japan s fledgling foster parent system as a means of stemming the population slide has revived the social debate on abortion and sex education for teenagers.
Starting this month, the ministry for health, welfare and labour will increase financial support for new foster parents, a step that is expected to encourage families to relieve the growing number of children in welfare centres and help stem the population decline.
Birth rates in Japan have dropped to 1.29 per woman making population growth a leading national issue.
By increasing (the number of) foster parents we will be providing neglected children with a much needed home we also hope the success of this plan will extend the messag…
Muddassir Rizvi
ISLAMABAD, May 14 2006 (IPS) – Islamabad is not the same too much traffic, too much smoke, too much noise. Our little heaven has become just another big city stripped of the tranquility it was once known for, a dejected Samina Shah said, as she waited at a traffic light on Blue Area Road, in Pakistan s capital.
An asthma patient, she wears a mask while driving her children to school in crawling traffic. Traffic jams are my worst nightmare. I just can t breathe, she lamented.
Pakistan s political capital is bursting with vehicles, the traffic police announced recently following a survey. As many as 143,886 vehicles enter Islamabad every day, said senior superintendent of Islamabad Traffic Police Sultan Azam Temuri.
A leafy city of over one milli…
Ashfaq Yusufzai
PESHAWAR, Jun 16 2006 (IPS) – Next to pirated films and music on CDs, the hottest selling Indian items in Pakistani markets these days are pharmaceutical drugs smuggled in from the neighbouring country.
Owing to a long history of rivalry and warfare, trade between the South Asian neighbours is minimal. But the ever-increasing costs of drugs, manufactured locally by multi-national corporations (MNCs) or imported, is encouraging chemists to turn to India s massive generic drugs industry.
Chemists, especially in rural areas, are doing a roaring business selling all sorts of preparations smuggled in from India. Antibiotics, analgesics, sedatives, tranquilisers and other medicines such as hormones, drugs for hypertension, ulcers and contraception are making…
Fritzroy Sterling
NEW YORK, Jul 31 2006 (IPS) – When Stanley Tookie Williams was strapped to a gurney awaiting his execution last December, things did not go as planned. California executioners had trouble finding a suitable vein in which to inject a lethal combination of drugs.
What happened next, medical professionals say, was probably a botched job that ultimately resulted in excessive and unnecessary pain for an additional 12 minutes.
Williams probable inhumane death, which would be in violation of the U.S. constitution, was not the only one, according to doctors groups and rights organisations that have studied executions.
Death row inmates this year have challenged the humaneness of the lethal series of drugs meant to kill them. Courts in California and …
Daniela Estrada
SANTIAGO, Sep 4 2006 (IPS) – The Chilean government decreed that all public health centres must provide birth control, including emergency contraception, to adolescents and women over the age of 14 a measure that immediately drew the ire of the Catholic Church and the right-wing opposition parties.
We applaud the decision of the Chilean Health Ministry, because we believe it safeguards the rights of women and gives us a chance to interrupt the cycle of poverty, Ximena Rojas, assistant director of the non-governmental Centre for the Development of Women (DOMOS), remarked to IPS.
After President Michelle Bachelet, a pediatrician, took office in March, Domos asked the Health Ministry to expand the distribution of emergency contraception.
The meas…
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Stephen Leahy* – IPS/IFEJ
BROOKLIN, Canada, Sep 25 2006 (IPS) – A green chemical revolution is underway that promises to be environmentally sustainable and profitable while reducing the risks of industrial disasters like the Bhopal, India gas leak in 1984.
Green chemistry has already turned maize into biodegradable plastics, developed non-toxic solvents and dramatically reduced the toxic byproducts from the manufacture of popular pharmaceuticals like ibuprofen. It is vital to the production of Toyota s new electric cars, made in part from kenaf, an annual grass plant.
Green chemistry is about developing new products and processes which actually fit the triple bottom line of environmental, economic and social sustainability, said Robin Rogers, a researcher and direct…