Matthew Berger
WASHINGTON, Feb 28 2010 (IPS) – As the war over health care continues in Washington and a war of a bloodier nature heats up in Ciudád Juárez and elsewhere in Mexico, top U.S. and Mexican officials are hoping to reduce both pressures on the health system and the ongoing bloodshed.
A three-day conference at the U.S. State Department concluded Thursday with a joint acknowledgement by the two countries of the crucial need to reduce drug demand and intensify prevention and treatment efforts.
We are building a health system that prepares communities to prevent illicit drug consumption and promotes a healthy society, said U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.
But south of the U.S.-Mexico border, violence related to drug traffic…
Suleiman Mbatiah
NAIROBI, Jun 14 2010 (IPS) – Much of the initiative behind the adoption of Kenya s controversial anti-counterfeit law came from multinational pharmaceutical companies using their membership of a local manufacturers association to push the legislation.
Kenya s Anti-Counterfeit Act of 2008, aimed at stemming the supply of counterfeits, has caused widespread concern as it may lead to law enforcement agencies stopping legitimate generic medicines at the country s borders. The law s application to medicines was suspended in April 2010 pending a court challenge brought by health rights activists.
Pharmaceutical companies called on other sectors represented in the Kenya Association of Manufacturers (KAM) a few years ago to support their initiative against co…
Lusha Chen interviews Dr. NIGEL SIZER of the World Resources Institute
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 14 2013 (IPS) – In June, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia were enveloped in haze as hundreds of forest fires burned across the island of Sumatra, in the worst pollution crisis to hit Southeast Asia in more than a decade.
Dr. Nigel Sizer, Courtesy of the World Resources Institute
An analysis by the U.S.-based World Resources Institute (WRI) determined that 150,000 square kilometres burned more than twice the size of Singapore. Worse, nearly three-quarters of the fires in the study area burned on peatland (a soil laye…
The backlash against globalization can no longer be ignored
Inequality out in the open. Credit: A.D. McKenzie/IPS
GENEVA, Sep 23 2019 (IPS) – Increasing economic inequality is a defining challenge of our time. In recent years, it has triggered analysis and reflection by many scholars, politicians and others on its causes and consequences on economic growth and efficiency, politics and democracy, human rights, individual behaviors, access to health, social cohesion and environmental degradation. The perception that the top 1% of income earners are gaining at the expense of the other 99% has resulted in widespread public debates in many countries on the social and .…
It’s not a lack of recognition that there’s knowledge and expertise outside the developed world; it’s just that such knowledge is not seen as relevant given the structural differences between developed and developing countries. Credit: UNFPA.
Oct 16 2020 (IPS) – Nine months into the pandemic, Europe remains one of the regions worst affected by COVID-19. Ten of the 20 countries with the are European. The other ten are in the Americas. This includes the US, which has the highest number of confirmed cases and deaths in the world.
Most of Africa and Asia, on the contrary, still seems spared. Of the countries with reported COVID-related deaths, the ten with the lowest death…
TORONTO, Canada, Dec 23 2022 (IPS) – A year that started with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and is ending with famine in Africa, while still spreading death and misery through an enduring pandemic and a deteriorating climate crisis 2022 has been an apocalyptic warning of the frailty of our planet and the woeful shortcomings of humankind.
Farhana Haque Rahman
Beyond the stark statistics of millions of people displaced by war and natural disasters, it has been a 12 months that tragically highlighted our global interconnections and how a confluence of events and trends can bring another year of record levels of hunger.
Tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians (numbe…
On the occasion of World Autism Awareness Day on 2 April 2023, IPS is republishing ‘When Is Too Much Autism Awareness Still Not Enough?’
DHAKA, Bangladesh, Mar 31 2023 (IPS) – When is too much Autism awareness still not enough? This thought recurs every April as we near World Autism Day on April 2, and parents reach out to me after reading enthusiastic and well-meaning news and journal articles – which are actually harmful and hurtful.
Saima W. Hossain
In 2008, along with a few dedicated parents and professionals, we began our effort to raise awareness around Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). We eventually came together to form an advocacy, capacity-building, …