AMSTERDAM, Sep 22 2009 (IPS) – Along with canal and dyke , young people visiting this city will learn some other interesting words in a very short time words such as cannabis , bong , and marijuana . The words are hard to avoid, especially in the tourist area that boasts a museum devoted to hash .
A hash museum in Amsterdam. Credit: Djavan De Clercq/IPS
But mere words are the least of a parent s worry here.
Residents are increasingly concerned that school-age children are being harmed by the long-standing policy of tolerance towards limited use of soft dr…
PARIS, Nov 9 2009 (IPS) – Designer rag dolls, the concept couldn t sound more frivolous. But dolls made by top fashion designers such as Armani and Prada are helping to fund a vaccination programme in war-torn Darfur.
From small beginnings six years ago, the Frimousses de Créateurs (Designers Dolls) project has grown to include about a hundred designers as well as prominent artists such as Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons, who are known for their provocative and controversial artwork.
Entertainers, too, have joined the cast, with French singer France Gall and outspoken actress Isabelle Adjani making dolls out of fabric and decorating them in their own fashion.
Last year, the doll project, coordinated by the United Nations Children s Fund (UNICEF), financed polio vaccina…
Suad Hamada
MANAMA, Dec 1 2009 (IPS) – Umbassil* is unlike other engaged women. Instead of planning her wedding she is wondering where she will have her baby. She is not pregnant but she knows that Bahrain s maternity hospitals will not admit her because she is HIV positive.
Somaya Al Jowder: Most of the women contracted the virus through sexual relations mainly with their infected husbands C…
Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 13 2010 (IPS) – The major earthquake that struck Haiti Tuesday, causing death and destruction in the capital of Port-au-Prince, may also turn out to be a veritable disaster for the United Nations, which has over 9,000 personnel, including peacekeepers, international staffers and local civilians, scattered throughout the country.
Suleiman Mbatiah
NAIROBI, Mar 19 2010 (IPS) – Kenya s Constitutional Court heard on Mar. 18 from counsel representing the government that the Anti-Counterfeit Act of 2008 does not threaten the importation or manufacturing of cheap generic medicines and therefore does not deny Kenyans their constitutional right to life.
Health rights activists protest outside the Constitutional Court in Nairobi. Credit: Suleiman Mbatiah/IPS
Three people living with HIV and AIDS…
Suleiman Mbatiah
NAIROBI, Apr 23 2010 (IPS) – The Constitutional Court in Kenya has barred the government from implementing the Anti-Counterfeit Act of 2008 as it applies to generic medicines until a verdict is delivered in a case filed by three people living with HIV.
Activists celebrate the ruling safeguarding generics outside the Constitutional Court in Nairobi. Credit: Suleiman Mbatiah/IPS
Three petitioners in July…
Servaas van den Bosch
REHOBOTH, Namibia, Jun 1 2010 (IPS) – A landmark court case, alleging that HIV-positive women were forcibly sterilised in Namibian state hospitals begins in Windhoek s High Court on Jun. 1. Human rights groups claim the practice has continued long after the authorities were notified.
The operating theatre at St Mary s hospital…
Inés Acosta
MONTEVIDEO, Jul 26 2010 (IPS) – Uruguay is on the point of reaching the Millennium Development Goal for reducing the maternal mortality ratio, but it is still behind in other aspects of maternal health, like providing integrated sexual and reproductive health care, fighting syphilis and checking on mothers and babies during the postpartum period.
These targets are still far off and there is no exemption just because maternal mortality is low, said Lilián Abracinskas, head of the non-governmental organisation Mujer y Salud en Uruguay (MYSU, Women and Health in Uruguay).
She told IPS that public campaigns to promote mother-and-child health policies are also needed.
This country has been successful in lowering maternal mortality and is on track to m…
Beatrice Paez
MONTREAL, Canada, Aug 25 2010 (IPS) – A mother accused of backing insurgents in the Philippines and her newborn son are awaiting their release from prison, in a case that has gained international attention.
Amaryllis Enriquez, the head of Karapatan, an alliance of individuals and organisations that investigate human rights cases, told IPS a new motion was filed Monday by the lawyers of Judilyn Oliveros, who gave birth in July and was brought back to prison last week after the court denied an appeal to extend her temporary release for six months to nurse her baby.
Oliveros is among a group of 43 people two doctors, one registered nurse, two midwives and 38 volunteer health workers who were arrested on Feb. 6 for the illegal possession of explosives and fi…
Peter Richards
PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, Sep 16 2010 (IPS) – An inescapable fact of living in societies that are as small and highly personalised as those in the Caribbean is that information travels very quickly and not always very accurately.
The result usually is that privacy is, more often than not, a luxury and once a stigma of whatever kind attaches to you, there is little scope available for leaving one area of the society and migrating to another to, as it were, make a fresh start, Barbados acting Prime Minister Freundel Stuart told delegates attending a two-day symposium on HIV/AIDS and human rights in the Caribbean this week.
As regional leaders get ready to attend the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) Summit in New York next week, health of…