Kwamboka Oyaro
KISII, Kenya, Jan 11 2008 (IPS) – A group of men who a couple of weeks ago were busy at work huddle together idle. They have grown tired of rehashing tales of their horrendous experiences at the hands of their hitherto neighbours and friends. Now they watch the entrance to the church here, in the hope that any visitor brings something to silence their rumbling stomachs.
I haven t eaten since yesterday. We gave the little food we received from well wishers to our children, says a man in his mid-40s. The other men around him nod in agreement.
A woman cuddling a baby is unable to talk. Tears trickle down her cheeks. IPS learns that her husband and older children may have been killed in the violence.
About 2,000 men, women, and children have been c…
ACCRA, Jan 19 2010 (IPS) – Juliana Kweais has a small scar on her bottom lip, from the first time she witnessed an abortion. The sharp blow to her mouth was delivered by her grandmother, after the then-13-year-old Kweais had asked why her auntie had given birth to a bloody sack.
A mother visits a reproductive health clinic in Ghana. Credit: Elana Roth/NYU Livewire
Kweais s eyes glaze over as she recalls that painful night, almost 20 years ago. Her aunt had been unmarried, and their f…
Matthew Cardinale
ATLANTA, Georgia, U.S., Jun 27 2011 (IPS) – Iran is drawing international criticism for its continued mass executions of people convicted of violating its drug laws. The Islamic Republic s judiciary reported that 300 people were on death row as of May 30.
For 300 drug-related convicts, including those who were in possession of at least 30 grammes of heroin, execution verdicts have been issued, said Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi, Tehran s prosecutor- general, according to the Sharq daily newspaper.
The Iranian government has already hanged 126 people for drug offences so far this year, as of May 30, according to , a death penalty abolition organisation.
Iran executed 650 people in 2010, 590 of whom were convicted for drug offences, according to the…
MEXICO CITY, Jan 11 2021 (IPS) – The new year has arrived, but the situation is worse than in the last months of 2020. The pandemic is still unleashed: the end of the year holidays, the official permissiveness, and the slowness of the distribution of vaccines seem to announce that the disease will continue to wreak havoc for several months in most of the world, particularly in America, Europe, and parts of Asia like India. It has therefore been required to redouble preventive measures: a new lockdown and the disruption of almost all economic and school activities. Therefore, the recovery looks still uncertain and distant.
Saul Escobar Toledo
On the health front, we can expect t…
JOHANNESBURG, May 15 2020 (IPS) – One of the planet’s – and Africa’s – deepest prejudices is being demolished by the way countries handle COVID-19.
For as long as any of us remember, everyone “knew” that “First World” countries – in effect, Western Europe and North America – were much better at providing their citizens with a good life than the poor…