Wambi Michael
KAMPALA, Nov 18 2008 (IPS) – We have lots of orders for apple banana. There is a ready market for kibuzi in London. It is eaten from Monday to Monday. But how to get it there is the issue. Almost 60 percent of the cost goes to freight.
Bananas being loaded in Masaka, central Uganda. Credit: Wambi Michael/IPS
This is one of James Kanyije s main complaints. He is the director of Icemark Africa, a leading Ugandan company that exports vegetables and fruit, including bananas. Bananas for cooking, c…
SAN FRANCISCO, Jan 15 2009 (IPS) – Eighteen U.S. veterans kill themselves every day. More veterans are committing suicide than are dying in combat overseas. One in every three homeless men in the United States has put on a uniform and served his country. On any given night, the U.S. government estimates 200,000 veterans sleep on the street.
This is the crisis General Eric Shinseki will inherit when he takes the reins at the Department of Veterans Affairs. The general, who retired from the Army after the George W. Bush administration ignored his warnings on Iraq, sat for his Senate confirmation hearing for VA secretary Wednesday, where he received accolades from Democrats and Republicans alike.
The chair of the committee, Senator Daniel Akaka of Hawaii, predicted Shinseki wi…
Zofeen Ebrahim*
KHARO CHAAN, Sindh, Feb 28 2009 (IPS) – Sitting on a rickety bench outside the dispensary of Dr. Abdul Jalil at Deh Bublo, Issa Mallah, a centenarian, watches the world go by. He says he comes to this city everyday to buy his groceries.
As Indus waters are diverted upstream, steady ingress of sea water into the delta has upset its delicate ecology. Credit: Zofeen Ebrahim/IPS
Jalil is…
Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 1 2009 (IPS) – The spreading global financial crisis is threatening to undermine another one of the U.N. s major development and health goals: family planning.
United Nations officials are expressing fears that planned funding for reproductive health services may fall short of its target.
According to the latest figures released here, international donor assistance to population activities continued to increase over the years 7.4 billion dollars in 2006 rising to about 8.1 billion dollars in 2007.
The projected funding for 2008 and 2009 was estimated at about 11.1 and 11.2 billion dollars, respectively.
However, given the current global financial crisis, it is not certain whether donors will live up to their expected fu…
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…
Franz Chávez
LA PAZ, Jun 3 2009 (IPS) – A new Bolivian government programme will provide special payments to pregnant women and mothers with children up to the age of two, with the aim of cutting the country s maternal and infant mortality rates.
The cash transfers, which will total 258 dollars over the space of a woman s pregnancy and her baby s first two years of life, are conditional on regular pre- and post-natal care visits by the mother and checkups for her baby.
Two women a day die of complications in pregnancy or birth and 48 of 1,000 babies die before their first birthday in Bolivia, South America s poorest country.
The left-wing government of Evo Morales, Bolivia s first indigenous president, already created a monthly stipend for families with schoo…
Daniela Estrada
SANTIAGO, Jun 29 2009 (IPS) – As a woman of childbearing age, I pay more than double what a man my age pays for the same health plan, 27-year-old Carolina Leyton told IPS.
Women waiting for treatment at a health centre. Credit: Daniela Estrada/IPS
Leyton is a subscriber of one of Chile s private healthcare providers, known as ISAPREs (Instituciones de Salud Previsional), which set different premiums depending on the risk associated with the beneficiary.
Since socialist Preside…
Lal Aqa Sherin
KABUL, Aug 5 2009 (IPS) – Thirty five-year-old Habibulah Khan walks out of a private clinic in the Afghan capital, covered in dust and looking dog-tired.
Doctors and administrators at private hospitals defend their billing practices Credit: Najibullah Musafer/Killid Media
The doctors, he says, told me to buy medicine from a nearby drug-store and bring the bottle back to him. He says his prescription cannot be found at other pharm…
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…