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…
Bert Wilkinson
GEORGETOWN, Aug 30 2007 (IPS) – A quiet but perhaps long overdue debate is taking place in this small English-speaking South American republic over the growing power and influence alternative medical practitioners, some of whom have recently been forced to officially back away from claims about special powers to heal everything from HIV/AIDS to various forms of cancer.
But while members of the Guyana Association of Alternative Medicine (GAM) recently concurred with a health ministry statement denouncing these more far-fetched claims, the spectacular rise of herbal doctors in recent years remains undisputed.
GAM has about 40 members, but there are dozens of roadside and market vendors selling their own mystery concoctions around the country.
It i…
Children with congenital disorders linked to the Bhopal gas leak at a candle-light vigil in December 2011. Credit: Chingari Trust/IPS
WASHINGTON, Jul 5 2012 (IPS) – After a controversial ruling Friday in favour of Union Carbide, NGOs and activists associated with the 1984 Bhopal, India industrial disaster are appealing the decision in the U.S. second circuit court of appeals.
Judge John Keenan s dismissal of a lawsuit against Dow Chemical Company s Union Carbide angered Indian activists the world over. Dow bought Union Carbide in 2001.
Keenan ruled that neither Union Carbide nor its former chairman, Warren Anderson, were liable for environmental remediation in th…
A Wyoming Air National Guard C-130 Hercules equipped with a Modular Airborne Fire Fighting System drops a water and fire retardant slurry on a fire on the Indonesian island of Sumatra on Nov. 17, 1997. Credit: U.S. Air Force
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 10 2013 (IPS) – Indonesia s forest fires, a predictable annual ritual, will continue to have serious implications for health and the environment in Southeast Asia unless the government strengthens forest protection, warn environmental groups.
The government claims it is doing its best, including implementation of existing protection measures against recurring forest fires. But environmental groups say Indonesia s b…
Credit: UN News Centre
ROME, Jun 12 2017 (IPS) – Globally over 1.5 billion people live in countries that are affected by conflict, violence and fragility. Meantime, around 200 million people are affected by disasters every year—a third of them are children. And a significant proportion of the 168 million children engaged in child labour live in areas affected by conflict and disaster. These are the facts. Up to you to reflect on the immediate future of humankind.
Conflicts and disasters have a devastating impact on people’s lives, the United Nations .
“They kill, maim, injure, force people to flee their homes, destroy livelihoods, push people into po…
Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus is Director-General of the World Health Organization*
A health worker at a local health centre in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, prepares a vaccine injection. The dispatch of millions of COVID-19 vaccines to Africa started in February. Credit: UNICEF/Sibylle Desjardins
GENEVA, Feb 11 2021 (IPS) – WHO and UNICEF have a long, deep and very special relationship. Neither of us could do what we do without the other.
UNICEF’s success is WHO’s success, and we are proud to be your partner on so many issues: Ebola, polio, maternal health, nutrition, infection prevention and control, primary health care – the list is lo…