Pavol Stracansky

BRATISLAVA, Oct 5 2011 (IPS) – Almost half of all doctors working in Slovakia s hospitals have handed in their notice in a mass protest over working conditions and wages which they warn could cause the Eastern European country s healthcare system to collapse.
They have given two months notice but say that if by the end of that time their demands for better wages and reforms of the healthcare system are not met they will carry through their resignations, leaving hospitals having to limit operations, close wards and provide only essential health services.

The mass resignations have been inspired by similar action taken by doctors in the neighbouring Czech Republic.

They also come, though, as discontent among low-paid medical staff runs high in a…

PRAGUE, Jan 22 2012 (IPS) – The Czech government has defied calls from international human rights groups to stop the degrading practice of surgically castrating sex offenders.
Announcing a raft of new health care legislation earlier this month, Prime Minister Petr Necas said the government would not be putting an end to the controversial practice, defending castration as an efficient method of stopping recidivism among sexual offenders.

But rights groups have questioned the move and even the government’s own human rights commissioner has said the practice is a throwback to out of date thinking on criminal punishments and leaves the Czech Republic out of step with the rest of Europe.

Other methods of treatment are given preference all over Europe. We consider it n…

Sana Altaf

Suicide rates, particularly among teenagers, have soared in Kashmir since the insurrection began in 1989. Credit: Sana Altaf/IPS

SRINAGAR, Mar 2 2012 (IPS) – On Feb. 6, a young girl committed suicide by swallowing poison at her home in Kashmir. A few weeks later a teenaged girl from Srinagar hung herself at her residence.
On Feb. 24, two girls from the Budgam district committed suicide by consuming poisonous substances. A few days later, on Feb. 28, a youth ended his life by jumping into the Jhelum River in the Sopore district of North Ka…

HAVANA, Apr 9 2012 (IPS) – In response to the pressures of everyday life, some people in Cuba are promoting meditation as a way to protect the mind and body and foster a culture of peace.

Group meditations are held in parks and other public places in Havana. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

People are looking for paths to inner peace and ways to live without stress. Having mechanisms for relaxation is a crying need everywhere in these times, cultural promoter Juan Dávila …

BEIJING, Jun 26 2012 (IPS) – Graphic online photographs of seven month-pregnant Feng Jianmei lying prostrate on a hospital bed next to a bloody foetus have created outrage in China over the brutal enforcement of the controversial one-child-policy. The husband of the woman whose forced late-term abortion caused uproar worldwide has gone missing, according to his family.

Feng’s husband Deng Jicai’s whereabouts are unknown, but his disappearance follows continued harassment by thugs and officials. Banners erected in the couple’s hometown in northern Zengjia county, Shaanxi, call them “traitors” and declare that they must be driven out for publicising the forced abortion online and accepting interviews from foreign media.

“The authorities concerned even threatene…

TOKYO, Aug 11 2012 (IPS) – Sachiko Masumura (79) was standing just two kilometres away from the hypocentre of Little Boy, the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan over six and a half decades ago.

She lost her mother and two siblings to the horrific heat, flames and radiation that engulfed the prefecture on Aug. 6, 1945, instantly wiping out 120,000 people.

Three days later the United States dropped a second plutonium bomb, ‘Fat Man’, on Nagasaki, killing 74,000 people according to government records.

Thousands of others, like Masumura’s father, who died last year from leukaemia, suffered the after-effects of radiation for years.

Masumura’s son is disabled from a brain disorder, a disease she links to the long-term impact of radiation. …

Children exposed to mining industry pollution in Peru. The debate on mining is raging throughout Latin America. Credit:Milagros Salazar/IPS

WASHINGTON, Sep 27 2012 (IPS) – New research from Oxfam, an international aid agency, finds that some of the largest multinational oil and mining companies are increasingly incorporating principles of community consent into their day-to-day operations.

Oxfam’s researchers looked at 28 of the world’s largest extractives companies and combed through their publicly available commitments to addressing the issue of community rights. They used the information to come up with a ranking – the Community Consent Index – that, …

Growing old in Jabaliya refugee camp in Gaza. Credit: Emad Badwan/IPS.

GAZA CITY, Mar 7 2013 (IPS) – “In Gaza we don t lead normal lives, we just cope, and adapt to our abnormal lives under siege and occupation,” says Dr. Mona El-Farra, a physician and a long-time human rights and women s rights activist in the Gaza Strip. On International Women s Day, when many of the world s women are fighting for workplace equality and an end to domestic violence, Farra and the majority of Gaza s women fight for the most basic of rights.

“It is difficult to live in this small piece of land, where basic needs like clean water, regular electricity, proper sanit…

LGBT activists, human rights observers and police officers wait outside a courtroom in Uganda’s constitutional court. Four activists had brought a case against Minister of State for Ethics and Integrity Simon Lokodo. Credit: Will Boase/IPS

UNITED NATIONS, Apr 26 2013 (IPS) – Ishita Chaudhry spent the past 36 hours listening to U.N. delegates discuss population growth and development. She noticed that on “controversial” topics, such as sexual and reproductive rights, young people’s voices often get lost.

“For us as young people, it’s really not as controversial as it is for governments,” said Chaudhry, a member of the (ICPD), at a press briefing Thurs…

Ranjit Devraj interviews SANJEEV CHOPRA, managing director of the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India (NAFED)

A tribal widow in India bends over a wood fire making puffed rice. Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS

NEW DELHI, Jun 24 2013 (IPS) – As managing director of the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation (NAFED), India’s apex agriculture marketing organisation, Sanjeev Chopra is in the thick of planned legislation to cover 800 million Indians under the world’s biggest food subsidy programme.

The new bill, whose implementation will cost 23 billion dollars annually, has been criticised as a ploy by the rul…