Aaron Glantz
SAN FRANCISCO, Sep 5 2007 (IPS) – The head of the U.S. federal government agency that doles out benefits to disabled veterans is under fire for saying Bible study is more important than doing [my] job.
Two organisations, Veterans for Common Sense (VCS) and the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), demanded an investigation Tuesday of Daniel Cooper, President George W. Bush #39s undersecretary for benefits at the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Their complaint stems from an appearance Cooper made in a fundraising video for the evangelical group Christian Embassy, which carries out missionary work among the Washington elite as part of the Campus Crusade for Christ.
In the video, Cooper says of his Bible study, it #39s not really about carvi…
Cam McGrath
CAIRO, May 5 2009 (IPS) – It is a health crisis of alarming proportions. Up to nine million Egyptians have been exposed to hepatitis C, and tens of thousands will die each year unless they receive a liver transplant.
Health authorities are taking steps to stop the spread of the blood-borne virus, but must also contend with higher liver failure mortality rates as the disease advances in those infected decades ago.
The prevalence of hepatitis C is not growing, but the impact of an outbreak in the 1960s and 70s is appearing now as a clinical outcome, says Dr. Mostafa Kamal Mohamed, professor of community medicine at Ain Shams University in Cairo. Liver disease has become the number one healthcare priority for the country and will continue to be so for the ne…
Marwaan Macan-Markar
BANGKOK, Aug 26 2009 (IPS) – Thailand s reputation as a South-east Asian country with strong anti-smoking laws is facing a direct challenge from the tobacco multinational companies, who are due to gather here in November for a major industry congress and exhibition.
The organisers of the cigarette promotion gathering, called TABINFO Asia 2009, are not leaving anything to the imagination as to why the Thai capital has been chosen as the venue for the Asia-Pacific region s own dedicated tobacco show.
The Asia Pacific region has not escaped the global credit meltdown. But its cigarette market remains more buoyant than elsewhere, declares the Tobacco Reporter trade publication in its website. The region remains one of the world s most promising ciga…
MOMBASA, Oct 27 2009 (IPS) – Kenyan teenagers are having sex. And they appear to have no clue how to go about it.
Samuel Katana is a member of the Dance 4 Life club at St Georges school in Kenya; the club is one of a very few places for teenagers to get information and advice…
An acid survivor in Bangladesh is rebuilding her life with help from the Department for International Development (DFID). Credit: Narayan Nath/FCO/Department for International Development (DFID)/CC-BY-2.0
KOLKATA, India, Jul 16 2013 (IPS) – Preeti Rathi was just 25 years old when she passed away in a Mumbai hospital exactly a month after a man threw acid on her while she stood waiting on a railway platform.
Rathi had travelled from India’s capital, New Delhi, to work as a nurse at INHS Ashwini, the naval hospital in south Mumbai. Despite closed-circuit television footage of the railway platform on which the attack took place, and massive protests launc…
Zimbabwe has criminalised gay relationships, striking fear into the hearts of many gays like these two walking side by side in the country’s capital, because they are being left out in strategies to combat HIV/AIDS. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo
HARARE, Dec 18 2014 (IPS) – Despite a mandate to eradicate HIV/AIDS under the U.N. Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), Zimbabwe has done little or nothing to reduce the rate of infection among vulnerable gays and lesbians, say activists here.
The MDGs are eight goals agreed to by all U.N. member states and all leading international development institutions to be achieved by the target date of 2015. These goals range from hal…