KANO, Oct 8 2009 (IPS) – Cowpeas are of vital importance to the diets and livelihood of millions of people in West and Central Africa. But the crop is notoriously difficult to store beetles and other pests can destroy an entire granary full of cowpeas within 12 months.

In September, ten people died – twenty mo…

MIDRAND, South Africa, Nov 13 2009 (IPS) – As the Second Africa Water Week ends, participants have reiterated that lack of access to clean water and adequate sanitation has a direct bearing on public health and the economy in Africa.
Podcasting Africa Water Week
Click on the links below to listen to audio reports from the week-long summit on water issues.

The South African minister for water and environmental affairs, Buyelwa Sonjica, who takes over as chair of the African Ministers Council on Water (AMCOW) for the next two years, observed that cooperation on these matters will serve as a principal building block towards breaking the cycle of poverty in Africa.

She also emphasised the need for enhancing regional capacity to carry forw…

Wambi Michael

ARUSHA, Dec 4 2009 (IPS) – All HIV-positive east Africans could soon access free anti-retroviral treatment even as they move freely from country to country, if a new proposed law comes into effect.

Catherine Mumma led a consultation in the five East African states before the drafting of the new proposed law. Credit: Wambi Michael/IPS

The East African Community (EAC) is currently developin…

Elizabeth Eames Roebling

SANTO DOMINGO, Jan 15 2010 (IPS) – The Dominican Republic, which has historically regarded its Haitian neighbour with suspicion, has turned toward Haiti with a tremendous outpouring of aid and love since a devastating earthquake rocked Port-au-Prince on Tuesday.

A grizzly scene marks the road to mass graves holding hundreds of bodies near Port-au-Prince. Credit: UN Photo/Logan Abassi

All of t…

Mario Osava* – Tierramérica

RIO DE JANEIRO, Feb 22 2010 (IPS) – Limiting your cholesterol through diet may not be enough to maintain cardiovascular health in polluted cities like São Paulo in Brazil: the particulates suspended in the air alter the molecular composition of LDL, popularly known as bad cholesterol, making it even more dangerous.

Polluted cities are a health risk, especially for the poor. Credit: Alejandro Arigón/IPS

The structure of LDL (low density lipoprotein) facilitates …

Ranjit Devraj

NEW DELHI, Mar 26 2010 (IPS) – The U.S.-based multinational Union Carbide got away lightly after causing the world s worst industrial tragedy at Bhopal, but that legacy has come to haunt U.S. corporations seeking to tap India s newly opened market for nuclear power equipment.
On Mar. 15, the government was to have tabled the civil nuclear liability bill, which would cap foreign firms liability at 450 million U.S. dollars in the event of an accident at a nuclear power plant and nail responsibility on the Indian state operator instead of on the equipment supplier.

But because opposition parties to the right and left of the ruling Congress party were uneasy about such provisions, the government sensed that there was a good chance that the bill would be defe…

Stephen Leahy

LIVERPOOL, Apr 28 2010 (IPS) – Poor intervention in Injecting drug use (IDU) is driving the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Eastern Europe and is also largely responsible for the tuberculosis epidemic in parts of Russia, says a new study.
Shockingly, a mere three US cents a day per injecting drug user are being invested to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS and TB, according to the study released at the opening of the Harm Reduction 2010 conference this week in this English port city.

Our report shows that just 160 million US dollars a year are being used in total for all the harm reduction programmes to prevent the spread of HIV around the world, says Gerry Stimson, executive director of the International Harm Reduction Association.

Harm reduction involves pr…

Ignatius Banda

BULAWAYO , Jun 9 2010 (IPS) – Twelve-year-old Tapuwa Bakare* darts through the traffic as irate motorists hoot at him and the tyres of speeding vehicles screech to a halt to avoid hitting him. Miraculously, the box filled with sweets and chewing gum that he carries does not fall from his grasp.

An AIDS orphan sits on an old bus seat. Zimbabwe has over one million AIDS orphans. Credit: IRIN

Bakare has things on his mind other than the traffic: he has a business to…

Zofeen Ebrahim

KARACHI, Pakistan, Jul 8 2010 (IPS) – Her husband works as a nurse in one of Pakistan s most prestigious private hospitals, but when their two-year-old daughter Mary was diagnosed with leukaemia, Sadaf John could only be thankful that the Children s Cancer Hospital (CCH) existed in this country.
If it hadn t been for this (hospital), said the 32-year-old mother of three, we would not have been able to afford such expensive treatment.

According to CCH chief Muhammad Shamvil Ashraf, the average cost of a complete treatment for leukaemia at the hospital could run up to 800,000 Pakistani rupees (more than 9,000 U.S. dollars).

Fortunately for the Johns and other families with members seeking treatment at CCH here in Karachi, the hospital is a chari…

Brahima Ouédraogo

OUAGADOUGOU, Jul 31 2010 (IPS) – The government of Burkina Faso has embarked on the construction of 55,000 latrines each year to improve access to proper sanitation for the population from the present 10 percent to 54 percent by 2015.

Public toilet in Ouagadougou, built during an earlier sanitation drive in 2007. Credit: Brahima Ouédraogo/IPS

According to the authorities, the average rate of access to sanitation in urban areas is …