Walter Sotomayor

BRASILIA, Apr 15 2008 (IPS) – The difficult balancing act between fighting hunger, producing biofuels and defending the environment is at the centre of the debate at the 30th Regional Conference of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in the Brazilian capital.
Experts from 33 Latin American and Caribbean countries, international agencies and non- governmental organisations began their technical meetings Monday at the Brazilian Foreign Ministry in Brasilia.

The aim of the conference is to assess conditions in the region, especially in the light of concerns caused by rising food prices.

We must find a balance between fighting hunger, energy security and protecting the environment, said José Antonio Marcondes, spokesman fo…

Steven Lang

GRAHAMSTOWN, May 26 2008 (IPS) – Located high in the Drakensburg Mountains of the Eastern Cape Province in South Africa, Sterkspruit is a picturesque rural area that includes several tribal villages. In the midst of this natural beauty, however, a tragedy has been unfolding over recent months.
Mike Waters, spokesman on health matters for the opposition Democratic Alliance (DA), claims that 142 babies in the region have died as a result of drinking contaminated water. Provincial health authorities have only acknowledged 78 deaths.

Most seriously affected are villages in Sterkspruit and the town of Barkly East in the Senqu municipality.

Health problems among villagers began to appear last October after aging equipment in the water treatment works at …

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 4 2008 (IPS) – When the United Nations approved a set of development goals on poverty, health, gender empowerment, and sustainable environment back in September 2000, it laid down a deadline of 2015 to reach these targets.
Of the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) endorsed by the General Assembly, seven had a clear-cut deadline of 2015 as the target date.

But the eighth goal a North-South partnership for development, mostly underlying the obligations of Western industrial nations did not carry a rigid deadline.

The deadlines were meant for the poor, not for the rich, says one cynical Third World development expert, who has been tracking the status of MDGs since their inception.

The eighth goal (MDG8) calls for a …

Antoaneta Bezlova

BEIJING, Oct 28 2008 (IPS) – Often criticised for its massive coal-based industries that jeopardise international efforts to combat global warming, China is undoubtedly the biggest victim of its voracious coal consumption.
Last year, the country s overwhelming reliance on polluting coal carried a price tag of 250 billion US dollars, according to a green lobby of environmentalists and economists.

Even more significantly, they calculate the hidden cost of environmental and social damage caused by China s coal mining industry to be seven percent of the country s 2007 gross domestic product.

Perceived as an affordable fuel found in abundant quantities throughout the country, coal is responsible for a litany of ills such as polluted air, contamina…

Ephraim Nsingo

HARARE, Dec 24 2008 (IPS) – On Christmas Day, Robson Nzuza and his family usually drive to their village in Silobela, in the Midlands Province, to spend a week with members of the extended family and throw a big party.
But this year, the party is off. If he had his way, Nzuza and most ordinary Zimbabweans would have postponed Christmas at least canceled it for this year.

After scrounging around for groceries and other items for the banquet, another hassle blocked Nzuza s way the cholera outbreak.

My wife had traveled to the village to prepare for the traditional party, Nzuza told IPS, but the message she brought from there was that the health authorities said people should not hold such big gatherings because of the cholera outbreak.

A…

Mario de Queiroz

LISBON, Mar 23 2009 (IPS) – Political leaders, activists, scientists and even Catholic bishops all joined in the chorus of criticism against the stance taken by Pope Benedict with respect to the use of condoms to curb the impact of HIV/AIDS in Africa.
AIDS is a tragedy that cannot be overcome by money alone, that cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which even aggravates the problems, the Pope said on a flight to Cameroon at the start of his first visit to Africa home to 70 percent of all people living with HIV/AIDS which ended Monday in Angola.

The governments of Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain were among the first to react vigorously to the pontiff s words, defending the views of the leade…

Elizabeth Eames Roebling

SANTO DOMINGO, Apr 23 2009 (IPS) – A truck full of female police officers, dressed in black riot protection gear, pulled up in front of the General Assembly building here to confront and control the crowd of women who had gathered on Tuesday to protest a right to life amendment to the Dominican constitution.

Women march against the new anti-abortion law in Santo Domingo. Credit: Elizabeth Eames Roebling/IPS

Having failed to reverse the countr…

Ignatius Banda

BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe, May 21 2009 (IPS) – As funds begin trickling in for Zimbabwe s reconstruction efforts, the rebuilding of infrastructure battered by years of neglect is set to gobble a huge chunk.
As Zimbabwe s national unity government approaches 100 days in office, Finance Minister Tendai Biti tasked with wooing donors to pour resources into support for the fragile coalition has said it will take some time for the country to return to 1996 standards, before what was once southern Africa s second largest economy went into a tailspin.

Rundown hospitals with paint peeling off the walls and operating theatres without life saving machines; schools without textbooks or desks; roads littered with potholes; water mains wastefully spilling treated water and…

Emilio Godoy*

TLALPUJAHUA, Mexico, Jul 24 2009 (IPS) – Mariana Rangel is filled with nostalgia as she gazes at the abandoned installations of the Dos Estrellas mine, where she worked as a secretary for six years. Those were years of prosperity; this is all there is left, she tells IPS, pointing to what used to be the local hospital.

Open pit mine in Cerro de Pasco, Peru Credit: Milagros Salazar/IPS

The old mining town of Tlalpujahua, a picturesque colonial hill town 160 km from the Mexican capital, is a symbol of the il…

Nergui Manalsuren interviews sanitation expert Duncan Mara

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 17 2009 (IPS) – Despite longstanding promises by world leaders to halve, by 2015, the number of people without basic sanitation, 2.5 billion still lack access to basic sanitation, and 1.2 billion don t have any form of sanitation at all.

Duncan Mara Credit: University of Leeds

I don t think that the MDG (the U.N. s Millennium Development Goals) sanitation target can be achieved, says Duncan Mara, a professor of civil engineering at University of Leeds who has been working on low-cost sanitation in de…