RIO DE JANEIRO, Dec 18 (IPS) - My mother cried a lot and I didn t know why. I was sad, but not upset. I got the news and I took at as something bad, but something normal. I didn t really understand what it meant. This is how Ana (not her real name) remembers her reaction to being told at age 13 that she had AIDS. Late
SIRAJGANJ, Bangladesh , Dec 18 (IPS) - With calm confidence and quiet reassurance, Mosammat Bedana Khatun encourages the women to open up. Outside it is raining heavily, the downpour splashing on the corrugated iron roof in a steady drone. The women, including Bedana, have one common context: their husbands have gone
SIRAJGANJ, Bangladesh , Dec 18 (IPS) - Hamida Begum (not her real name) of this district in northern Bangladesh has a startled look about her. She barely raises the veil from her face. The timid eyes look too prominent on her thin and sharp face. The women gathered at the office of a non-government organisation here a
SANTIAGO, Dec 17 (IPS) - Scantily-clad models and actors telling off-colour jokes are stars on the same TV channels in Chile that have refused to run government ads that encourage the use of condoms to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS. The Unified Movement of Sexual Minorities (MUMS) has taken legal action against three
NAIROBI, Dec 17 (IPS) - As Kenya enters 2004, it appears likely that the country s education system will come under increased scrutiny. Many teachers want the current syllabus to be overhauled, saying it places undue pressure on staff and children alike. At present, students undergo eight years of primary education, f
WASHINGTON, Dec 17 (IPS) - A major new study is suggesting that U.S. policies on family planning and agricultural trade might contribute to setting the stage for conflict in developing countries. Released Wednesday by Population Action International (PAI), the report calls on foreign policy and national-security offic
MBABANE, Dec 17 (IPS) - How does it feel to be an orphan in a country where by tradition there are no orphans? I am lonely, but I have my sister. If not for my sister, I would be all alone, said nine- year-old Themba, who with his 13-year-old Sister Monica lives in a child-headed household in rural Luve, 40 km north of
JOHANNESBURG, Dec 13 (IPS) - From its humble beginnings when it attracted a mere 135 entries, this year 308 artists entered the 8th Annual Kora All-Africa Music Awards. The event, held in the Sandton Convention Centre in Johannesburg on Dec. 6, has over the years grown into the most important platform for African artis
NEW YORK, Dec 13 (IPS) - A wrenching new documentary about HIV/AIDS seeks to firmly connect the numbing statistics with the faces and names of people suffering from the disease, and the men and women fighting to get them treatment with few or no resources. This is a story about the way the world is, the narration says.
JOHANNESBURG, Dec 12 (IPS) - South Africa has become a beacon of hope for the girl child in Sub-Saharan Africa, where poverty and outdated traditions have prevented girls from attending schools. School enrolment of girls and their progress through the education system in South Africa is relatively better than in other
BANGKOK, Dec 12 (IPS) - Thailand remains a model for Asian developing countries for its economic development that has brought impressive gains in education, but it has some catching up to do in the fewer number of girls in primary schools. A total of 86.7 percent of primary school-age boys are enrolled in Thailand, but
HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam , Dec 11 (IPS) - Returning here after three years of absence, Nguyen Viet Quang, a U.S. citizen of Vietnamese origin, remarked that he no longer saw posters with skulls and bones or bloody syringes warning of the danger of HIV/AIDS displayed in large cities. The change is welcome, Quang sa
KARACHI, Pakistan , Dec 11 (IPS) - Standing at the far corner of the outpatient section of the gynecology and obstetrics ward of the Qatar General Hospital in the southern port city of Pakistan, one can see a million expressions on the numerous faces of the women here. If there is pain on one, there is excitement o
NEW YORK, Dec 9 (IPS) - Sweeping changes to the nation s Medicare programme, signed into law Monday by President George W. Bush, are facing a new round of criticism from AIDS activists who say that the new legislation is going to put tens of thousands of U.S. citizens living with AIDS in harm s way. Our government is f
DHAKA, Dec 9 (IPS) - Thirty-year-old Safia Begum, a domestic worker at a high-rise apartment in the upwardly mobile Gulshan enclave of the Bangladeshi capital, has a little secret. Till last year, she had been a prostitute in a small border town of India for as little as five rupees, or 16 U.S.
WASHINGTON, Dec 8 (IPS) - Volunteer social worker Alain Rias, who helps treat people living with HIV/AIDS in Honduras , says his work has helped patients recover, go back to work and support their families. But the French activist, who works with Medicins sans Frontiers (MSF), known in English as Doctors Without Borde
KINGSTON, Dec 3 (IPS) - At a time when most six-year-olds were enjoying a carefree life, Gary was the sole care-giver for a mother stricken by AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome). The young boy (whose last name was withheld on request) had been looking after his mother for almost a year when three weeks ago his
JOHANNESBURG, Dec 2 (IPS) - In South Africa s KwaZulu-Natal province, a train winds its way through the undulating hills. On board, six young people with HIV/AIDS, along with celebrities from local soap operas, television and radio are doing their bit to raise AIDS awareness. In Johannesburg, a set of new and colourful
BANGKOK, Dec 2 (IPS) - Just as Thailand was basking in another round of praise for combating HIV/AIDS through an effective condom campaign, it has been reminded by its future leaders -- university students - that its triumph is not worthy of repetition. Particularly objectionable to the students is what health officia
PORT OF SPAIN, DEC 1 (IPS) - The main causes for the spread of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, are not being addressed in the Caribbean, says a leading researcher. No amount of quilts, condoms and commemorative stamps on World AIDS Day are going to stamp out this pandemic unless we address the root causes, said Courtn
MONTEVIDEO, Dec 1 (IPS) - A year ago, 52 Bolivians living with HIV/AIDS complained to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights that their government refused to provide anti-AIDS drugs free of charge, in violation of the country s international commitments. Only 33 of them are alive today. David was the last to die
NAIROBI, Dec 1 (IPS) - The World Health Organisation and the United Nations Joint Programme on HIV/AIDS launched a new initiative, Monday, to provide antiretrovirals to three million people by the end of 2005. The 3 by 5 campaign kicked off in Nairobi, Kenya , on the occasion of World AIDS Day (Dec. 1). It will focus o
ADDIS ABABA, Dec 1 (IPS) - Aster tested positive for HIV/AIDS eight years ago, but she has yet to summon the courage to tell her family, for fear of being rejected by them. Her predicament is typical of HIV-positive Ethiopians. Health workers say the biggest obstacle to these people leading normal lives is the stigma a
WASHINGTON, Dec 1 (IPS) - All nine Democratic candidates for president have pledged to more than double spending to fight global HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria over that planned by the Bush administration until 2008. Marking World AIDS day Monday, the contenders also vowed to deepen debt relief to the world s poor
MBABANE, Dec 1 (IPS) - Swaziland is a small country geographically, and its population numbers less than a million. But, it has an oversized AIDS problem. We have a disproportionate AIDS dilemma. It comes from a failure in the past to own up to an emerging crisis, an official with the Ministry of Health told IPS. A
CHENNAI, India , Dec 1 (IPS) - My name is Dinakar. I study is Class VII. My parents are both having AIDS. My father is a rickshaw puller and my mother works in other people s houses when she can. She is mostly at home with high fever. My father does not go to work three to four days in a week and when he does, he says
BOGOTA, Nov 28 (IPS) - Because self-love is the most important, I m the one who carries the condom, actress Diana Angel, a favourite among young Colombian television viewers, says confidently and directly into the camera. Angel plays Gabriela, a high school student in a low-income Bogot neighbourhood, in Francisco el
BLANTYRE, Nov 27 (IPS) - When the Commonwealth heads of government gather in Nigeria next month for their bi-annual meeting, the agenda will probably be dominated by politics. But, if activist Julita Msanjama had her way, the leaders would spend most of their time discussing education. Msanjama is
WASHINGTON, Nov 26 (IPS) - After extensive deal making, Congress is set to provide 2.4 billion dollars for global anti-AIDS initiatives in 2004, 400 million dollars more than was requested by President George W. Bush. The money, part of a 17.1-billion-dollar foreign aid package that is being folded into a nearly 400-bi
JOHANNESBURG, Nov 25 (IPS) - We are here to sound a new and more urgent alarm over what is arguably the most neglected crisis that has been spawned by the HIV/AIDS pandemic, Carol Bellamy, Executive Director of the United Nations Children s Fund, said in Johannesburg, Wednesday. That is the plight of millions of profou
WASHINGTON, Nov 25 (IPS) - After falling during the first half of the 1990s, the number of hungry people in the world, particularly in developing countries, is once again on the rise, say latest estimates by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). Nearly 800 million people are now thought to go to b
GENEVA, Nov 25 (IPS) - Two centuries ago, the Spanish monarchy sent a group of orphans on a ship to its colonies in the Americas. The children served as living vessels for the vaccine against smallpox, the equivalent at the time of today s HIV, or AIDS virus. Two children were vaccinated shortly before departure, and
MBABANE, Nov 24 (IPS) - The road transportation business in Southern Africa is fraught with obstacles, in the shape of AIDS and crime. However, industry players say it is also providing opportunities for promoting black empowerment. This term, predominantly used in South Africa , refers to efforts at increasing the
JOHANNESBURG, Nov 22 (IPS) - After years of delays, the South African government gave its stamp of approval this week to a plan for providing free anti-AIDS drugs. Over the next five years, the state hopes to extend the programme to over a million people living with AIDS. The price of a year s supply of the life-prolon
MIAMI, Nov 21 (IPS) - Ministers from 34 countries of the Americas have stated their support for a hemisphere-wide free trade agreement that allows each nation to make commitments a la carte , an approach that civil society groups say veils the deep differences that remain and sidesteps the urgency of fighting poverty i
SANTIAGO, Nov 19(IPS) - What is at stake is a matter of life and death, says Silvia Moriana, representative of Doctors Without Borders in Bolivia , in reference to the provisions on intellectual property rights and drugs patents in the negotiations of the Free Trade Area of the Americas. Doctors Without Borders (MS
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 18 (IPS) - Political and media attention, not the needs of the hungry and needy, determine funding to resolve global humanitarian crises, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said Tuesday. As we have seen time and again, people respond generously when they see on their television screens a hungry child
NAIROBI, Nov 18 (IPS) - The sight of the tiny, mud-walled shelter located in a slum just outside of Nairobi was heart-breaking. Heaps of clothes, shoes, papers -- and a sack of potatoes -- were stashed in different corners of the one-roomed dwelling. The picture became still more disturbing when IPS spotted a figure at
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 17 (IPS) - The spread of the deadly disease AIDS is threatening the security and stability of several U.N. peacekeeping missions overseas, said an agency official Monday. HIV/AIDS represents a challenge to every one of the 42,000 soldiers and police officers currently under U.N. command, Under-Secre
CARACAS, Nov 14 (IPS) - Carla is a 10-year-old Venezuelan who earns good grades and wants to be a doctor when she grows up. After school, where she is in the fourth grade, she takes hair-cutting classes. But she has a carefully guarded secret: she is living with HIV, the AIDS virus. One of the main concerns of Carla s
LUSAKA, Nov 13 (IPS) - The demand for anti-AIDS drugs far outstrips supply in many African countries. But, Zambia appears to be an exception to this rule - at first glance. The Director of Technical Services at the country s Central Board of Health, Victor Mukonka, said recently that people were not coming to clinics
BEIJING, Nov 12 (IPS)- A series of anti-AIDS measures announced by the Chinese government indicate that health crisis caused by the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome earlier this year has served as a wake-up call for Beijing to take in earnest health threats it had previously preferred to ignore. A common worry though,
BLANTYRE, Nov 8 (IPS) - The small Southern African country of Malawi , with a population of just 11 million, has found itself at the heart of the AIDS pandemic. The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS estimates that up to 15 percent of Malawians have been infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) tha
LAGOS, Nov 6 (IPS) - The government of Nigeria has rushed health workers to Daramba, a village on the border with Niger, following an outbreak of whooping cough - one of the six main killer diseases for children. Health officials blame the outbreak on the attitude of villagers who have shunned routine immunisation. Th
MANZINI, Swaziland , Nov 6 (IPS) - Samito is a short, good-natured 15 year-old who seeks to support his girlfriend and their eight month-old baby by holding down two jobs. He is a garden boy, and he sells sweets at the busy central bus rank where thousands of people converge, giving Manzini, Swaziland s most populous
OTTAWA, Nov 4 (IPS) - Canada s plan to be the first G8 country to relax its patent rules to allow generic copies of anti-HIV drugs to be manufactured and shipped to pandemic regions in Africa and other southern nations might be snagged in a web of domestic political changes. HIV is the virus that causes AIDS. Prime
SANTIAGO, Nov 1 (IPS) - The First Transgender Theatre Company in Chile has become a reality, providing an opportunity for its members to make a living in the arts of the stage instead of the sex industry, often the only means of subsistence in a society that discriminates against sexual minorities. Cecilia, Anais
WASHINGTON, Oct 31 (IPS) - Dozens of humanitarian and advocacy groups called Friday for a drastic overhaul of U.S. foreign aid policy and warned that Washington increasingly views foreign assistance as a tool for national security, which is creating an expanded role for the military in delivering aid overseas. In the
WASHINGTON, Oct 31 (IPS) - AIDS activists proclaimed a major victory in their fight to push the U.S. administration to spend more in the global battle against HIV/AIDS after the Senate voted Thursday to increase the U.S. contribution by nearly 300 million dollars in 2004. Rejecting calls by President George W. Bush, se
BANGKOK, Oct 31 (IPS) - Laos has taken a small, yet symbolic step to join the ranks of its South-east Asian neighbours, Thailand and Cambodia , in providing hope to its citizens living with HIV/AIDS. This week marked the first time that a Laotian with HIV/AIDS
JOHANNESBURG, Oct 28 (IPS) - A liar and inhuman was how popular South African satirist Pieter-Dirk Uys described President Thabo Mbeki. But, according to surveys, the popularity of the president has increased ahead of elections next year. Uys was criticising Mbeki for recent controversial remarks reported in a U.S. new
NAIROBI, Oct 28 (IPS) - The prospect of receiving anti-retroviral therapy was brought a little closer to millions of HIV-positive Kenyans recently, with the announcement of a price reduction for some of the drugs that are used to treat AIDS. British-based pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) said last week t
KAMPALA, Oct 27 (IPS) - Ugandan Magdalena Achero (not her real name) is a bitter woman. As a school teacher, in a country which has been hailed as a beacon of hope for people living with HIV/AIDS, she has experienced discrimination firsthand. Last month she received a discouraging message from the local education offic
NEW DELHI, Oct 24 (IPS) - India has just been pledged 200 million U.S. dollars to fight HIV/AIDS by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, but none of this money will go toward anti-retrovirals, which activists say could help alleviate the suffering of some 4 million people living with the virus. The Indian govern
MBABANE, Oct 24 (IPS) - In this week s parliamentary elections, the number of women legislators increased by 150 percent in a country where women candidates had complained that it is difficult for them to be taken seriously as representatives or as authority figures because of their gender. This is a remarkable increas
NAIROBI, Oct 23 (IPS) - Rights campaigners in Uganda are demanding a law to protect women from domestic violence, which has been blamed for the high prevalence rate of HIV/AIDS among them. The campaigners, mostly women s groups, have argued that lack of such legislation would water down efforts to fight the pandemic.
MEXICO CITY, Oct 22 (IPS) - Representatives of the governments of the Americas will meet next week in Mexico to write the obituary for the system of hemispheric security that emerged in the Cold War era. The governments will assume new commitments and conceptions of security, although analysts warn that they could be s
BANGKOK, Oct 14 (IPS) - Annop Lekhakul s early steps into the world of medicine have led him to a role that comes close to playing God. After all, he holds the power over longer life or quick death for the patients with HIV at the government hospital he serves here in Thailand . Tuesdays leave the young doctor drai
JOHANNESBURG, Oct 14 (IPS) - While government pins responsibility for its decision to ban soldiers who are HIV-positive from active duty on United Nations regulations, activists plan to fight the state in court. We abide by international law to the extent it is in keeping with the constitution but it is our view that U
LUSAKA, Oct 13 (IPS) W hen Lands Minister Judith Kapijimpanga announced recently that government had, with immediate effect, directed local authorities to intensify land allocation to women to empower them through ownership, there was a huge round of applause. When she urged the usually truculent traditional rulers to
PERUGIA, Italy , Oct 11(IPS) - Another conference, another talkshop? Not according to Eveline Herfkens, executive coordinator of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals Campaign, and delegate to the 5th U.N. Peoples Assembly in Perugia. She believes that the meeting could play a part in building support for ch
WASHINGTON, Oct 11 (IPS) - Two tireless women s rights champions, Maeza Ashenafi from Ethiopia and Sara Longwe from Zambia , were awarded the 15th annual Africa Prize for Leadership, often referred to as the Nobel Prize for Africa , in a ceremony Saturday in New York. The Hunger Project, a global strategic organisa
BULAWAYO, Oct 10 (IPS) - It s been months since Noma, a cancer patient at Mpilo, the largest government hospital here, has gone for radiotherapy. The process is meant to stop the cancer in her leg from spreading. But five months ago the only machine used by patients in three provinces - Matabeleland, Masvingo and Midl
BANGKOK, Oct 9 (IPS) - If populations across Asia are to enjoy the full scope of reproductive and sexual health rights, they must be given new life as one of the many human rights recognised universally, rather than be reduced in significance and treated as specific and different principles. That was a key message that
WASHINGTON, Oct 8 (IPS) - Developing a vaccine to prevent HIV/AIDS infection and establishing manufacturing and distribution networks are crucial to the long-term global fight against HIV/AIDS, said a panel of scientists Wednesday. During a discussion sponsored by the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI), leadi
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 8 (IPS) - The international community is being blamed for neglecting the social and economic needs of the largest generation of adolescents in history -- about 1.2 billion out of a world population of 6.0 billion -- who will soon enter adulthood. Investing in young people will yield generous returns
BANGKOK, Oct 8 (IPS) - Marisa Netgaiboon is ready for the price she will have to pay when motherhood comes -- a life of humiliation and harsh taunts from her community and even from people who are expected to be caring, like doctors and nurses. That is because the 35-year-old from southern Thailand s Ranong province ha
NYAGATARE, Rwanda , Oct 7 (IPS) - Judith Kanzayire, a 29-year-old mother of three children from northern Rwanda, admits that she was the victim of marriage by abduction . What can you do? It s the tradition here. We have no choice but to accept it, she says. When asked if she is happy with her life and if she has lear
BANGKOK, Oct 6 (IPS) - A conference on reproductive health began here Monday with U.S. President George W Bush being cast as a villain for his attempt to bully health clinics in the developing world to follow his conservative political agenda. While some speakers did not specifically name the Bush White House as they w
NAIROBI, Oct 6 (IPS) - The role that religious organisations can play in helping communities to care for children affected by AIDS has been receiving greater attention since the 13th International Conference on AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infections in Africa. The meeting, which was held in Nairobi from Sep. 21 to Se
HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam , Oct 6 (IPS) - Teachers and parents are just about the last people many young Vietnamese turn to when it comes to understanding sex-related issues, saying they find sex education in school too dry and their parents unwilling to say much about it. Thus, they are turning elsewhere for informati
BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe , Oct 3 (IPS) - The perceived correlation between low HIV infection and male circumcision is one area that AIDS researchers are yet to be convinced about. At the centre of the hypothesis that male circumcision does provide a measure of protection against HIV-AIDS are puzzling discrepancies in HIV pr
NEW DELHI, Sep 29 (IPS) - India may be emerging as a major exporter of cheap anti-retroviral drugs, but it ironically does little to provide affordable treatment for tens of thousands of people living with HIV/AIDS in this country. The drugs are out there and can even be bought across the counter at most drug stores,
NAIROBI, Sep 29 (IPS) - In a remote village in South Nyanza District, western Kenya , Lawrence Orawa is known as jater , (loosely translated as widow cleanser). His work is to perform a sexual act with women whose husbands have passed away, a ritual meant to cleanse the home and chase away evil spirits . One of h
NAIROBI, Sep 26 (IPS) - From the UN headquarters in New York to Nairobi, the conference venue for the 13th International Conference on AIDS in Africa, the focus this week fell sharply on extending access to treatment with anti-retroviral drugs. Anti-retroviral drugs can downgrade the disease from life-threatening to a
LIRA, Sept 25 (IPS) - Dorcus Apecu is a primary seven schoolgirl who keeps her fingers crossed. She is praying that her mother does not take her out of school and get her married due to lack of school fees. At sixteen, Dorcus is already over age in a society where girls are married off early in order to get bride price
I lost my job after my employer came to know my HIV status. My children were chased from school and my relatives stopped visiting me, says Evelyne Apondi, whose husband succumbed to the disease two years ago. NAIROBI (IPS) - As if that was not enough, I was deregistered from my church, thanks to the stigma associated
WASHINGTON, Sep 24 (IPS) - President George W. Bush s cuts to funding for global reproductive health programmes have not only failed to reduce abortions, but have devastated family planning and reproductive services in some of the world s poorest countries, says a report released Tuesday. Access Denied: U.S. Restrictio
NAIROBI, Sep 24 (IPS) - We want drugs! You talk as we die, were some of the angry voices by AIDS activists who protested Wednesday against failure by their governments to give them anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs). Some rolled on the ground as others shouted and marched through the 13th International Conference on AIDS in
NAIROBI 24 (IPS) - Wearing a beauty queen s sash, Kgalalelo Ntsepe, had her audience at the International Conference on AIDS in Africa in stitches and in an almost non-stop round of clapping when she spoke this week. With a dry sense of humour and an ability to poke fun at herself, she came over almost as a charming st
MAE SOT, Thailand , Sep 23 (IPS) - When she heads to the only health clinic in this border town where Burmese migrant workers feel welcome, Khin SoeYee runs the risk of being arrested. She had a close call one recent Saturday, when the Thai police stopped her and her husband on their way to the Mae Tao clinic. What sa
NAIROBI (IPS) - The silence in the room is chilling as everybody pays attention to an AIDS verse by children from a Nairobi-based institution caring for AIDS orphans. Through the tear-jerking and thought-provoking poem, the children, from Nyumbani Children s Home, ask for a friend to lend a helping hand in the fight ag
NAIROBI (IPS) - They are like babies now, says Prudence Mabele about the people living with AIDS she cares for as a volunteer in South Africa . Some wear nappies; I need to wash and feed them. Caring for someone means taking him or her to the hospital and sometimes spending the whole day with them. Then there s caring
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 22(IPS) - A series of speeches, panel discussions and press conferences all pointed to one conclusion Monday -- the fight against HIV/AIDS is starving for money. That means member states will not meet basic HIV/AIDS prevention and care goals adopted in the 2001 U.N. Declaration of Commitments on HIV
BLANTYRE, Sept 22 (IPS) - Media workers in Malawi have responded negatively to a call by the government for them to act as community role models and go for HIV/AIDS voluntary counselling and testing. The media workers, who include media managers, editors, broadcasters and reporters in Malawi s commercial city of Blant
PARIS, Sep 21 (IPS) - The world will not meet the Millennium Development Goals by 2015 without a dramatic improvement to services, a senior World Bank official says. The world as a unit will probably halve the proportion of people living on less than one dollar per day due to the remarkable economic growth of
RIO DE JANEIRO, Sep 19 (IPS) - Damaris Lucena, 78, is undergoing chemotherapy for stomach cancer. She receives a widow s pension of 80 dollars a month and needs medications that cost 23.5 to 40 dollars a month. The synthetic drug that would be appropriate in her case costs around 270 dollars, but her daughter, a nurse,
GRAHAMSTOWN, South Africa , Sep 18 (IPS) - Slowly, but effectively, the Internet is empowering women in Africa to follow events as they have never witnessed before. The latest case in point is the women in Somalia who have been following their country s peace talks in neighbouring Kenya
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 17 (IPS) - Thailand is being recognised for its fight against HIV/AIDS as world leaders gather to discuss progress against the scourge at a U.N. General Assembly session next week. Acknowledged among a small group of success stories , including Uganda ,
WASHINGTON, Sep 16 (IPS) - With the Bush administration s most recent request to Congress to fund operations in Iraq and pressure from tax cuts, economic recession and previous spending on the war on terror , economists are starting to doubt if the government can fulfil its commitments to foreign aid and overseas deve
WASHINGTON, Sep 16 (IPS) - As Eastern Europe and Central Asia teeter on the brink of an HIV/AIDS epidemic, concerted action to keep the virus from spreading to the general population could prevent huge socio-economic costs later, says a World Bank report released Tuesday. Averting AIDS Crises in Eastern Europe and Cent
ADDIS ABABA, Sep 16 (IPS) - Miss Ethiopia has joined hands with non-governmental organisations (NGOS), which are based in the capital Addis Ababa, in the fight against HIV/AIDS. She will play a role in a documentary film addressing the issues of stigma and discrimination, which NGOS say are the greatest hindrances in
LOME, Sep 13 (IPS) - Ayele Ajavon is a happy woman, so she believes. After she was divorced by her husband, she sought solace in the church. I turned to the church and found a job and a new partner, says Ajavon, now a secretary in the capital Lome. But Ajavon cannot take any step or decision without consulting her pas
NEW DELHI, Sep 12 (IPS) - The government s stand that same-sex relationships are criminal and unlikely to be accepted in Indian society has left homosexuals and HIV/AIDS workers a disappointed lot. Aman Lekhi, counsel for the government, told the Delhi High Court on Monday that homosexuality cannot be legalised in Ind
BANGKOK, Sep 12 (IPS) - Cambodia s entry into the World Trade Organisation (WTO) this week is triggering a debate over whether this will be a panacea or a bitter pill for the country s 170,000 people living with HIV/AIDS. On Thursday, ministers attending the 146-nation WTO meeting in Cancun, Mexico , a
CANCUN, Mexico , Sep 11 (IPS) - Some WTO members may be patting themselves on the back for the agreement on low-cost medicines for poor countries, citing it as proof that they can indeed work together, but NGOs in Cancun for the Fifth World Trade Organisation Ministerial Conference say there is little reason to celebr
WASHINGTON, Sep 11 (IPS) - AIDS activists say the Bush government has reneged on its promise to finance the battle against HIV/AIDS, after two Senate votes this week failed to obtain funding for various initiatives. The level of hypocrisy among many in the Senate seems to know no limit when it comes to the global AIDS
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 11 (IPS) - Eminent intellectuals and leading civil society advocates who closely work with the United Nations are demanding that any move to reform the Security Council must include the emerging powers from the global South. And that long-discussed change must not be thwarted by arguments that south
ACCRA, Sept 9 (IPS) - Joana (not her real name) hurriedly jumped out of a tro-tro (minibus) at Circle heading straight towards Korle Bu Teaching Hospital. She was about 15 minutes late for her fortnightly meeting with an association of people living with HIV/AIDS in Accra. It was a special day as they were going to mee
MBABANE, Sept 9 (IPS) - Swazi women are engaged in a quiet cultural revolution with self-empowerment as their goal, but in the face of traditional laws that have long denied them equal rights. The battle directly affects women s ability to cope in the current AIDS crisis. We have worked long and hard for equality, and
YAOUNDE, Sep 8 (IPS) - Cameroon is not known for the famine and drought that devastate much of Africa each year. Blessed with abundant rainfall, it is part of the equatorial forest where surplus food is always produced. The problem, as Jacques Boyer, coordinator of the UN Children s Fund (UNICEF) in Cameroon, recently
ACCRA, Sep 5 (IPS) - Diagnosed with HIV three years ago, Kabuki is determined not to let her sexual partner know. He has lived with me for many years but has not bothered to perform the marriage rites. He thinks he is taking me for a ride. Why should I tell him? she asks. Thirty-five-year-old Kabuki, who hails from one
RIO DE JANEIRO, Sep 4 (IPS) - As many as four out of 10 Brazilian women of child-bearing age have had their tubes tied, according to estimates that are widely accepted by experts. That unusually high rate of sterilisation is due to a culture of tubal ligation, which has become the preferred method of birth control, eve
BANGKOK, Sep 4 (IPS) - Countries across Asia and the Pacific may soon be staring at a drastic cut in their labour force - and see their economies undermined -- if their leaders fail to take action to stall the deadly march of HIV/AIDS, a senior U.N. official here. This dire prediction by Kim Hak-Su, executive secretary
KAMPALA, Sept 2 (IPS) - In a society where women are still valued as property, and do not have equal decision-making powers and status within the family, the existence of rape and brutal attacks on them by their spouses has become a stimulant for HIV/AIDS infections. And in a country where a specific domestic violence
DAKAR, Sep 2 (IPS) - Women s groups are urging health officials to make premarital HIV testing mandatory so that young women are protected against AIDS . The CAR-Femmes coalition, which is spearheading the campaign, is being supported by the Association of Women and Youth for Africa s Development. Safietou Ba Diop, the
MBABANE, Sep 1 (IPS) - Since the publication last week of a government report that showed a majority of small businesses are owned by Swazi women, women s empowerment groups are trying to reconcile this surprising news with the reality that Swazi women are legally minors with limited rights in this small country.
MBABANE, Aug 29 (IPS) - When the revered leader of a country crippled by an AIDS crisis breaks his own rules intended to curb the HIV infection rate, the policy is doomed to failure, critics of King Mswati s decision to take an eleventh bride said this week. Two years ago, the king stunned everyone by imposing a five-
KARACHI, Pakistan , Aug 29 (IPS) - I call him my failure, Dr Ashraf Memon said of Mohammad Wali, because even after seven years we have not been able to persuade him to bring his family for testing. Wali (not his real name) is 32 and has AIDS, for which he has been consulting Dr Memon, of Karachi s Sindh AIDS Control
LONDON, Aug 28 (IPS) - A new report reveals the kind of moves multinational giants have been making to control decisions at the World Trade Organisation ministerial summit in Cancun next month. The report by Friends of the Earth International (FOEI) details several instances where giant corporations have moved to cont
BEIJING, Aug 28 (IPS) - Chinese health officials proclaim a new era of openness in tackling the long-denied epidemic of HIV/AIDS, but this attitude was nowhere in sight when one of China s most renowned AIDS campaigners was awarded a Ramon Magsaysay Award, Asia s version of the Nobel Prize, for her work last month.
GENEVA, Aug 27(IPS) - Preparations for the WTO ministerial conference next month in Mexico concluded Wednesday in a climate of dissent, marked by the developing countries dissatisfaction with the draft declaration to be presented to the world s trade ministers. One of the few exceptions amidst these tensions at the Wor
GENEVA, Aug 26 (IPS) - The general lines are drawn for the negotiations to take place among the WTO s 146 member states next month in Cancun, Mexico . But pending is the difficult task to unite the behind putting together an agreement, say sources close to the trade talks. An agreement would be finalised with the resol
LAGOS, Aug 26 (IPS) - Adults living with HIV/AIDS are receiving subsidised anti-retroviral drugs, while children in similar situation are not benefiting from the medicine which the government launched last year, rights activists complain. Infected children have a right to life just as their adult counterparts who are c
DAR ES SALAAM, Aug 22 (IPS) - Women in Africa have to rise up to the challenge of developing positive attitudes as a key factor to advancing themselves, as well as attaining sustainable socio and economic development of the continent. This was the message from the Tanzania Minister for Community Development Gender and
HAVANA, Aug 21 (IPS) - As other countries legalise same-sex civil unions and adoptions by homosexuals, the question of homosexuality has only just become a subject of public debate in Cuba . The daily Juventud Rebelde -- the second highest circulation newspaper in this Caribbean island nation of 11.2 million -- surpris
RIO DE JANEIRO, Aug 20 (IPS) - Brazil s ministries of health and education have begun to distribute condoms in schools as part of a stepped-up campaign to prevent unwanted pregnancies and the spread of HIV/AIDS among teenagers. A new Health and Prevention Programme plans to hand out free condoms to some 30,000 students
DHAKA, Aug 19 (IPS) - Dibya Thapa (not her real name), 20, was instrumental in rescuing about 300 unsuspecting girls in 1997 and 2000 from the Kakarbhitta checkpoint on the Nepal- India border in the eastern part of the Himalayan kingdom. Dibya is HIV-positive, having got the virus sometime between and 1994 and 1996 i
MEXICO CITY, Aug 18 (IPS) - When you re on drugs, you re just out of it, and nothing matters. That s how I got sick, says Raul, a young HIV-carrier who spent four years living on the streets of Mexico City. I had sex with another young guy to get drugs from him, he confides to IPS. The estimated 20,000 children and ado
BULAWAYO, Aug 18 (IPS) - It s the first Sunday of the month. On the streets in Mpopoma - a working class area - many adults, both men and women but especially men, are distinguishable by their smart ties and dark blazers. Some of the men are on bicycles. Most are walking briskly and very few are in their own vehicles.
SWAZILAND, Aug 18 (IPS) - Gogo ( Granny ) Mkhatjwa, 62, has had enough of watching her grandchildren die of the disease that cuts you down completely, as AIDS is colloquially known in the SiSwati language. I have learned about this disease. The health motivators taught us. I am insisting that my daughters take proper
MAPUTO, Aug 15 (IPS) - Trade in children, literally slave trading in infants to teenagers, has been a problem that African law enforcement officials thought was mostly confined to the western part of the continent. But a new study by the UN Children s Fund (UNICEF) has exposed the vulnerability of impoverished
JOHANNESBURG, Aug 14 (IPS) - It may seem an impossible task to eradicate AIDS amongst children globally but the staff from the U.S.-based Elizabeth Glaser Paediatric AIDS Foundation appears to be committed to this vision. On a visit to South Africa this week staff members, together with officials from the U.S. Senate,
MBABABNE, Aug 13 (IPS) - A growing reform movement, abetted by radical labour unions, is being heard louder than ever this week at the commencement of a British Commonwealth summit being held in Swaziland from Aug. 12 to Aug. 16. The meeting, known as the SMART Partnership Dialogue Summit, is intended to open channels
JOHANNESBURG, Aug 12 (IPS) - Wary of broken promises, anti-HIV and AIDS activists are keeping a guarded eye on the South African government, despite its most concrete commitment to develop a comprehensive treatment plan for people living with the disease by the end of September. The department of health says its offici
GENEVA, Aug 11 (IPS) - International trade negotiations this week enter the final stretch before the Fifth WTO Ministerial Conference in Cancun, Mexico , with the first signs of progress in the otherwise troubled agricultural talks and announcements of new mobilisations by groups opposed to the multilateral trade syst
MBABANE, Aug 7 (IPS) - Commercial sex workers are not responsible for the rise in AIDS cases regionally, but their activities do contribute, and efforts to contain the spread of HIV now include members of the world s oldest profession. The activities of commercial sex workers tell researchers much about societies in a
DURBAN, Aug 6 (IPS) - AIDS activists have launched a new company to sell cheap anti-retroviral drugs to people living with HIV/AIDS in South Africa . The company, known as the Generic Anti-retroviral Procurement Project (GARPP), was launched this week after activists accused the government of a lack of political will
NEW YORK, Jul 31 (IPS) - After years of modest but encouraging victories against AIDS, the disease is again rising in the U.S. population and experts say there are no easy answers to the problem. The number of people in the United States diagnosed with full-blown AIDS spiked 2.2 percent in 2002, the first increase in
KOLKATA, India , Jul 30 (IPS) - Shanti, 19, had never stepped outside her village of Thakarnagar in India s West Bengal state. So when her best friend invited her to board a bus to a neighbouring village to meet some relatives , she readily agreed. Instead, the friend took her to the railway station, where they bo
HARARE, Jul 30 (IPS) - When we started in 2001, we used to move from door-to-door looking for AIDS patients, explains the matronly MaSibanda. But now, because the stigma is slowly dying many are seeking our help, she adds. As a volunteer in Rival of Hope, one of many community groups that give home-care to the scores o
KAMPALA, Jul 29 (IPS) - Whenever I appear on the stage and confess that I have never had sex in my life, my goodness, people laugh and fall on their knees. Even someone, who initially appeared composed, just bursts out laughing, says 26-year-old Ugandan musician, Richard Kaweesa, who is urging youth to abstain from sex
LUSAKA, Jul 28 (IPS) - Enraged by the rising cases of child abuse, a member of parliament has called for mandatory castration in all defilement and rape cases in Zambia . The legislator, Inonge Wina, has been supported by fellow activists like Jurita Mutale from the Young Women s Christian Association. The buck h
DAR ES SALAAM, Jul 25 (IPS) - Antonia Kilegu, 30, looks like a healthy young woman. But when she told a press conference in the Tanzanian commercial city of Dar Es Salaam that she was living positively with the human immunodeficiency virus that causes AIDS many people, including her own relatives, were horrified. S
DHAKA, Jul 25 (IPS) - Ask a male Bangladeshi villager how AIDS has been spreading in his country and nine out of 10 will reply, Bangladeshi nongra (dirty) women bring it from outside . Female Bangladeshi migrants who return home are often seen by their male contemporaries as loose or bad charactered women. Whether they
BLANTYRE, Jul 23 (IPS) - Many Malawians living with HIV/AIDS are forced to rely on illegal drugs in a bid to treat opportunistic illnesses, ease suffering and prolong their lives. Some of the fake drugs have flooded the country s parallel market with a potentially disastrous health impact. A lack of recognised cheap dr
DAKAR, Jul 22 (IPS) - I am determined to push through my message, that we must tackle urgently the danger that faces us all, and that is the HIV/AIDS epidemic, says Adams Sie, a 24-year-old Sierra Leonean filmmaker, who lives in the Senegalese capital of Dakar. I want to send this message through my films, and I hope
OTTAWA, Jul 18 (IPS) - The huge U.S. pharmaceutical industry is trying to crush Canadian-based Internet companies that sell drugs at relatively low prices to U.S. customers, Canadian pharmacists say. The Canadian-based pharmacies have won the support of the powerful senior citizens lobby in the U.S., known as AARP, fo
NEW YORK, Jul 18 (IPS) - While most scientists are convinced that a vaccine is the best hope to turn the tide of HIV/AIDS, such research is proceeding at a leisurely pace because it gets only a fraction of the already inadequate funding doled out for prevention and treatment, experts say. Giant drug companies -- most n
WASHINGTON, Jul 17 (IPS) - Two efforts by Democratic lawmakers to boost next year s U.S. contribution to the global fight against AIDS were narrowly defeated in a key Congressional committee Wednesday, spurring charges that Pres. George W. Bush, who just returned from a five-day trip to Africa last weekend, had betraye
GENEVA, Jul 17 (IPS) - Politics and the media spotlight have contributed toward shifting humanitarian aid to high profile disaster areas at the expense of more invisible suffering, charges the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies in its annual World Disasters Report, released here Thursday.
PARIS, Jul 17 (IPS) - The European donors conference to fight AIDS, tuberculosis , and malaria produced less than half the expected aid package at its meeting in Paris Wednesday. This conference has closed with disappointing financial commitments from Europe, Helene Rossert, director-general of AIDES, a French associa
DAR ES SALAAM, Jul 15 (IPS) - - Tanzania still has a long way to go in achieving gender equality and cultures in some communities continue to force women to marry another woman in order to bear a son for inheritance purposes. This culture exists among the Kurya tribe in the country s North Western region of Mara borde
KUALA LUMPUR, Jul 15 (IPS) - They are confined in luxury condominiums to satisfy a select club of the rich and old in Malaysia , who visit them regularly in late afternoons. These noon brides are visited by patrons who wine, dine and have sex with them, before going home to their families. But many of the women are
WASHINGTON, Jul 14 (IPS) - On his first week back from a whirlwind trip across Africa, U.S. President George W. Bush will have a lot of explaining to do -- and not just why a controversial allegation about Iraq s efforts to obtain uranium yellowcake from Niger made it into his State of the Union address, either. V
JOHANNESBURG, Jul 13 (IPS) - As United States President George W Bush leaves Africa this weekend, analysts, citizens, even Hungarian tourists to Johannesburg, are asking the question: so, what next? Optimists, including the South African, Nigerian, Botswana , Senegalese and Ugandan governments, are convinced th
ABUJA, Jul 12 (IPS) - U.S. President George W. Bush ended his five-nation tour of Africa Saturday, with a pledge to support Africa s fight against HIV/AIDS and poverty. Over the next five years, the United States will spend 15 billion U.S. dollars to fight AIDS around the world, with special focus on Africa, Bush said
MAPUTO, Jul 12 (IPS) - While the economic and political crisis in Zimbabwe is one of the conflicts that captured the attention of United States (US) President George Bush during his trip to Africa, the African Union (AU) is officially silent on that country. But while President Robert Mugabe s presence in Maputo ha
GENEVA, Jul 11 (IPS) - Poor countries access to low-cost medicines has become, alongside farm trade, a make-or-break issue in what has been dubbed the Doha Round of negotiations, under the auspices of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). Carlos Perez del Castillo, chairman of the WTO General Council, says the lack of an
MAPUTO, Jul 11 (IPS) - Almost as common as national flags at the African Union summit in Maputo, Mozambique , is the red ribbon symbol of the anti-HIV/AIDS campaign. Messages warning about the threat HIV/AIDS poses to the future development of the continent are all over convention centre where 53 African heads of stat
LAGOS, Jul 9 (IPS) - U.S. President George W. Bush s visit to Nigeria on Friday will only benefit American investors, says a human rights activist. It is purely an economic trip. It is to persuade (President Olusegun) Obasanjo to opt out of OPEC to ensure that the U.S. has a hold on the country s oil, claims Segun Jed
LONDON, Jul 9 (IPS) - The development of a vaccine against malaria could be five to eight years away, a leading researcher says. We will try to shorten that, but it is not going to be easy, Prof Adrian Hill, a Wellcome Trust research fellow at the Institute of Molecular Medicine at the University of Oxford told media r
PARIS, Jul 9 (IPS) - Immigrants of African origin report an unusually high incidence of AIDS in France , and recent government measures are only making it worse. The reported incidence of AIDS is rising particularly among immigrant women, says a report by the French Health Watch Institute (INVS, after its French name)
BLANTYRE, 9 Jul (IPS) -- Faced with high prevalence of HIV/AIDS infection, environmental degradation and sluggish economic growth, young women professionals in Malawi have put their heads together and intensified efforts to bring about a major paradigm shift. The women, under a grouping called the Young Women Leaders
NEW YORK, Jul 4 (IPS) - Nearly 11 million children do not live to see their fifth birthday each year due to a lethal combination of malnutrition and mostly preventable diseases, according to a new article in the Lancet journal -- a catastrophe that experts say is needless. Every single day -- 365 days a year -- an atta
WASHINGTON, Jul 3 (IPS) - Will President George W. Bush s first trip to Africa as president amount more to spin than to substance? That s what most Africa specialists are waiting to find out, and the betting so far, despite his administration s leaning toward sending U.S. peacekeeping troops to Liberi
BUCHAREST, Jul 3 (IPS) - Fifteen-year-old Nicu Popescu (not his real name) has written a long list of gifts he wants, including new shoes and a football T- shirt. He also wants to be an airplane pilot, but who knows whether that wish can come true. Nicu, a seemingly healthy boy with big, blue eyes and thick, dark hair,
WASHINGTON, Jul 2 (IPS) - U.S. President George W. Bush s surprise pick of a former top executive of a major U.S. pharmaceutical company and major Republican contributor as his global AIDS co-ordinator has drawn expressions of concern and even outrage among Africa and AIDS activists here. Bush s choice of former
BANGKOK, Jul 2 (IPS) - A practice common in some Asian countries - forcing migrant workers to face mandatory HIV/AIDS tests - is bound to hasten the spread of the disease than curb it, say experts and officials at a regional conference on migrant workers here. These policies spark fear through an already vulnerable gro
JOHANNESBURG, Jun 30 (IPS) - South Africa s first significant female-led political party was launched in South Africa by Patricia de Lille, a former trade unionist and leader of the Pan Africanist Congress. De Lille, one of the country s top ten most popular politicians, is taking the ruling African National Congress
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Jun 25 (IPS) - My mother and my godmother helped deliver him right there, said Marie-Michelle, 27, smiling as she balanced the chubby six-month-old on one hip and pointed to the unmade bed. She could be any young mother -- her hair dishevelled, her home in disarray.. Dinner was still just an idea. B
KAMPALA, Jun 25 (IPS) - Faridah Ssentongo, 10, may remain traumatised for the rest of her life, right groups fear. A year ago, she was raped by a man she did not know. It all started when her mother Martina, a widow, confided in a family who promised an education for Ssentongo in a nearby school in Mpigi, a district so
LAHORE, Pakistan , Jun 24 (IPS) - The narrow alleys behind the majestic, Mughal-era Badshahi Masjid (King s mosque) here in Pakistan s second largest city cradle a people who are looked down upon as social outcasts. Though these musicians, dancers and sex workers provide services to many, they are stuck in a profession
KAMPALA, Jun 23 (IPS) - Ugandan Joshua Byabashaija has no idea what he will be doing after completing his secondary school in five months. It s almost the end of my secondary programme. I have no idea what the future holds for me, says a worried Byabashaija. I could become a teacher, because that s what my parents did,
MOSCOW, Jun 20 (IPS) - Medical authorities are considering new control measures following a sharp rise in the number of young people infected with HIV. Tatyana Yakovleva, deputy head of the healthcare committee of the State Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament, warned a parliamentary committee last week of a
COLOMBO, Jun 17 (IPS) - Anil (not his real name) resembles a baby and only his long, matchstick limbs reveal that he is older. Very ill, his underdeveloped body is wracked by bouts of coughing. The plight of this three-year old boy with HIV has revived a debate in Sri Lanka over what many say i
NAIROBI, Jun 14 (IPS) - It s not easy to change the pattern of a man who is used to making love to ten women, who is polygamous in nature, says Nigerian Femi Jarret, executive producer of the African Radio Drama Association. Traditionally, his forefather had 10 wives. There were 40 of them as children. Most of them don
SYDNEY, Jun 13 (IPS) - A new HIV vaccine developed in Australia , if successful after its first-ever clinical trial on humans here and in Thailand , will offer hope to the world s poor in the global fight against HIV/AIDS, say researchers. The development of a HIV vaccine is particularly important in resource-poo
KRUGER PARK, South Africa , Jun 13 (IPS) - The new Kruger Mpumalanga International Airport boasts of having the world s largest thatched roof . The claim is verified by the enormous grass ceiling supported by dark-stained wooden posts that greets holiday and business travellers arriving in northeast South Africa. But t
JOHANNESBURG, Jun 11 (IPS) - Africa is infamous for being a disease-torn continent that looks to the West to save it from falling into a bottomless pit of ailments. But African scientists are proving the perception wrong as they strive to solve the problems of a sick continent themselves. An all female team at the Univ
KOLKATA, India , Jun 5 (IPS) - Already under emotional stress from being infertile, Indian couples are finding that the artificial route to conceiving children is fraught with danger, and that sometimes it can be deadly. The discovery in May that a 35-year-old woman in the eastern Indian metropolis of Kolkata contracte
BRUSSELS, Jun 3 (IPS) - The European Union has responded to calls from the U.S. and civil society to step-up its humanitarian aid to Africa by pledging more than 2 million euros in financial help to the troubled continent. The EU and two of its largest member states responded to international pressure by announcing a s
EVIAN, France , June (IPS) - Six African organisations, representing women, labour, researchers and development activists have described the outcome of the G8 summit a stunning failure . As the world s seven major industrial nations and Russia concluded their deliberations, the group said some drops of aid out of Ev
PORT OF SPAIN, Jun 3 (IPS) - On two occasions last month, Svenn Miki Grant, the community outreach co-ordinator of the Young Men s Christian Association (YMCA) stood outside a secondary school and the main library in the city and handed out condoms and sex education literature to school children. His action, he said, w
JOHANNESBURG, Jun. 2 (IPS) - My father died a long time ago, says an 11-year old girl from South Africa s KwaZulu-Natal province. My mother died last year, she says. That will always stay in me because the life that I am living is not a good one. While AIDS deaths are not notifiable and stigmatisation in South Africa i
EVIAN, France , Jun 1 (IPS) - Civil society organisations are becoming increasingly sceptical about the value of the G8 summits to Africa. More energy has gone into non-African issues such as the aftermath of the Iraq war than into matters of vital importance to Africa, says Ezra Mbogori, executive direct
ANNEMASSE, France May 31 (IPS) - African leaders have joined non governmental organisations in calling on the Group of Eight countries to deliver on previous commitments, in particular on the Africa Plan of Action that was launched at last year s G8 Summit in Canada . In a communiqué issued at the end
KARACHI, Pakistan , May 28 (IPS) - Khurshid, a truck driver for more than seven years now, says he is enticed by the charm of this southern Pakistani city, but would not bring his wife and children here even if he earned enough money to do that. It s no place to bring up children, they may get wayward, says the 32-yea
EVIAN, France , May 27 (IPS) - As G8 leaders prepare to meet next Sunday in Evian-les-Bains in the French Alps, the fall-out of the diplomatic rift over Iraq is threatening to push Africa to the fringes. Signs are that squabbles over the Iraq war have profoundly strained relations between France and the
BRUSSELS, May 26 (IPS) - The European Union adopted a new regulation Monday, enabling exporters to provide essential medicines at starkly reduced prices to poor countries. The European Council, made up of Heads of State or Government of the 15 member states of the EU and Romano Prodi, President of the European Commissi
GENEVA, May 22 (IPS) - Brazil and more than 60 developing countries confronted the United States Thursday at the World Health Assembly in the debate on pharmaceutical research on the most common diseases in poor nations. The Brazilian and U.S. delegations presented divergent proposals for resolutions on the matters of
WASHINGTON, May 22 (IPS) - The persistent gap between rich and poor nations, continued environmental decline and higher military spending are all undermining global stability, according to the latest annual edition of WorldWatch Institute s Vital Signs report. Global poverty is directly linked to environmental degradat
WASHINGTON, May 21 (IPS) - The Bush administration s loudly trumpeted recent announcements of development aid hikes coupled with more money to fight HIV/AIDS globally do not match budgetary realities and may translate into far smaller increases than anticipated, say two economic think tanks. In a report released on Tue
WASHINGTON, May 20 (IPS) - Major church groups from around the world Tuesday launched a global corporate code of conduct that will be used to help determine whether their investment arms should buy or shun shares in corporations working in developing countries. Ten years in the making, Principles for Global Corporate R
LUSAKA, May 19 (IPS) - Former Zambian President Kenneth Kaunda is no stranger to HIV/AIDS, having lost his own son to the incurable disease in the late 1980s. After losing his son, he became the first African leader to come out publicly and campaign against the pandemic. Now, Kaunda says African leaders should approach
GENEVA, May 19 (IPS) - The World Health Assembly got underway in an unexpectedly optimistic climate due to the decision of the United States to withdraw its objections to the first global treaty on tobacco control, paving the way for its approval Wednesday. But concern about the persistence of the SARS epidemic was a c
WASHINGTON, May 16 (IPS) - In what its supporters hailed as a milestone in the U.S. commitment to fighting the global spread of HIV/AIDS, the Senate approved by voice vote a five-year, 15 billion dollar anti-AIDS package in the pre-dawn hours Friday morning. But Africa and anti-AIDS activists complained afterwards that
SAN JOSE, May 15 (IPS) - Persecution of labour activists, black lists drawn up by employers, and lower wages paid to women are just a few of the forms of labour discrimination suffered by groups like trade unionists, women, indigenous people, the disabled, and immigrants in Central America. In the 1990s, the peace acco
JOHANNESBURG, May 14 (IPS) - South Africans living with HIV and AIDS will have to carry on waiting, while the government decides if it will make anti-retrovirals, drugs which ease the impact of the disease and reduce its transmission from mother to child, freely available in the public health system. Last week, a joint
UNITED NATIONS, May 12 (IPS) - When 70 world leaders gathered at the United Nations last year for a special session of the General Assembly, they solemnly pledged to create a world fit for children . The heads of state, along with 1,700 delegates representing non-governmental organisations (NGOs) from 117 countries, co
GENEVA, May 12(IPS) - Every minute, around the world, there are incidents of flagrant discrimination in the workplace against women, persons with HIV/AIDS, members of ethnic groups, the elderly and others, says the International Labour Organisation (ILO) in a new report. Creuza Maria Oliveira, president of the Brazilia
DAKAR, May 11(IPS) -- No good news ever appears to emerge out of Africa. As a developing continent it is often inundated with negative reports of war, hunger, disease and death but the African Women s Media Centre (AWMC) - a women s media Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) - thinks it can change this negative percepti
New York, May 9 (IPS) - Ask any HIV/AIDS outreach workers in New York how the city s fast growing South Asian community is faring in its new home and they are most likely to say, old habits die hard . South Asians believe that AIDS is something that doesn t happen to them, says Gurpreet Clair of the city s APICHA (Asia
LUSAKA, May 6 (IPS) - The U.S. government has granted 114 million U.S. dollars to a consortium of three aid agencies to assist people at risk of starvation in Malawi , Zambia and Zimbabwe . The grant will be channelled through the U.S. Aid for International Development (USAID) to Catholic Relief Servic
JOHANNESBURG, May 5 (IPS) - The South African government delay in facilitating the release of millions of dollars in funding that would provide the desperately needed anti-retroviral treatment is a clear indication that the country lacks the political leadership to provide treatment for those living with HIV/Aids, acti
The U.S. House of Representatives approval Thursday of a five-year, 15 billion dollar package to fight HIV/AIDS in 14 African and Caribbean nations is a key victory for President George W Bush and anti-AIDS activists, but the concrete test of this commitment lies ahead. The bill, which would p rovide three billion doll
ROME, Apr 30 (IPS) - While the most dramatic global health issue of the moment is the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), which had claimed a total of 353 lives by Wednesday, a heated political battle continues to rage quietly between the United States and the World Health Organisation (WHO). The
JOHANNESBURG Apr 29 (IPS) -- Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) may have captured the world s headlines as the most alarming worldwide health problem, displacing AIDS in the news of Africa. But according to African health ministers meeting in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania , this week malaria remains a persistent and wo
MONROVIA, Apr 25 (IPS) - Liberia s long-running war - coupled with the UN sanction on diamonds trade, and the high level of poverty and unemployment - seriously threatens the survival of the country s children. Health Minister Dr. Peter Coleman gave the assessment in his contribution to a UN forum for development dialo
LILONGWE, 23 Apr (IPS) -- HIV/AIDS infection rates appear to be on the decline in Malawi and authorities have attributed the drop to the declining number of AIDS related deaths of already infected people. The national prevalence rate in 1999 indicated that 16 percent of the country s 11.2 million population were infect
TORONTO, Apr 23 (IPS) - With reports that SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) can survive for up to 24 hours on inanimate surfaces, turning any object into a potential transmission source, it looks like the virus might indeed be the global pandemic suggested by health experts. But what exactly does that mean? Davi
JOHANNESBURG, Apr 21 (IPS) - Even before the United States sent troops to the Middle East, South Africa s government has been warning that the war in Iraq will deflect attention from Africa, a region which had become a focus after the unveiling of the New Partnership for Africa s Development (NEPAD) two years ag
JOHANNESBURG, Apr 19 (IPS) -- People must support Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) because the government is dragging its feet for four years. It is no good for me to be on anti-retroviral drugs and my friends on the ground are dying. These were some of the last words spoken by Edward Mabunda (36), TAC activist, who die
WASHINGTON, Apr 14 (IPS) - Despite launching their semi-annual get together asserting that they are not political bodies, last weekend revealed that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank are prone to manipulation by their richest members, a weakness that can have the effect of sidelining pressing develop
HAVANA, Apr 11 (IPS) - Tens of thousands of people living with HIV, the AIDS virus, in Latin America and the Caribbean lack access to the anti-retroviral medication needed to delay the onset of full-blown AIDS. We don t have time was the most frequently heard refrain at the community forum held during the second Forum
VIENNA, Apr 11 (IPS) - Government representatives from over 100 countries are locked in a passionate debate at the Vienna premises of the United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime (UNODC) over the continuing abuse of narcotic drugs by at least 185 million people around the world. And the number is said to be rising.
WASHINGTON, Apr 9 (IPS) - Economic performance will continue to languish in most regions of the world in 2003, with developing countries recording slight improvements and rich nations achieving mixed results, said the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Wednesday. Growth in the globe s major economic engines, the
ABIDJAN, Apr 9 (IPS) - The Geneva-based Global Fund to Fight AIDS has just granted 92 million U.S. Dollars to Cote D Ivoire to fight AIDS in the strife-torn West African country. Cote d Ivoire , with a population of 16 million, is the most affected by HIV/AIDS in West Africa. Unfortunately, the country has been spl
ISLAMABAD, Apr 9 (IPS) - Najma says she does not like her work, but that circumstances compel her to continue being a sex worker. The 30-year-old mother of a seven-year-old daughter, was forced into prostitution 15 years ago. There s no way out, said Najma, who lives in Heera Mandi, the red light area in the eastern to
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 8 (IPS) - The United Nations is underlining the stark irony of an average war-battered Iraqi family being assured of at least one month s food stocks while its African counterpart has to literally make do with nothing. I can assure you that 40 million Africans, most of them women and children, would
JOHANNESBURG, Apr 7 (IPS) - The war in Iraq is a wake up call for Africa to rid itself of aid dependent economies and to realise that the future of the continent lies in the hands of Africans and not foreigners, South African Trade Minister Alec Erwin said on Monday. Addressing a three-day African Investment Forum
JOHANNESBURG, Apr 7 (IPS) - As African leaders and business executives gather in South Africa s commercial capital Johannesburg on Monday for a three-day dialogue within the New Partnership for Africa s Development (NEPAD), African businesswomen say the gender blind blueprint needs a major overhaul to benefit women.
LILONGWE, Apr 2 (IPS) - Most Malawians breathed a sigh of relief this weekend as the gloomy face of President Bakili Muluzi filled the local television screen announcing that the National Executive Council (NEC) of his ruling United Democratic Front (UDF) had endorsed a new person to run as the presidential candidate.
NAIROBI, Mar 31 (IPS) - Many young Africans are unhappy about the way their continent is being run. Most African politicians, like their counterparts elsewhere in the world, are middle-aged men. Rarely do you see a 20 or 30-year old in Parliament. Yet the majority of Africans are young people. And they are the ones bei
ISLAMABAD, Mar 31 (IPS) - The increasing incidence of hepatitis and fears of an HIV breakout forced the Pakistani government to finally formulate this month a framework to ensure blood screening, but public health experts say it suffers from major flaws. The National Blood Policy and Strategic Framework for National Bl
NAIROBI, Mar 28 (IPS) - Child abductions by rebels of the Lord s Resistance Army in Uganda have surged in recent months, according to a new report by Human Rights Watch (HRW). In the last ten months, some 5,000 Ugandan children have been abducted - more than in any other year of the 16-year old conflict. The incre
LIBREVILLE, Mar 28 (IPS) - With medical bills constantly shooting up, people living with HIV/AIDS in Gabon are increasingly turning to traditional healers for treatment. One of the most popular traditional healers, Dr. Ferdinand Ngoubili, the founder of the Association for Research into Natural Healing Secrets, has bee
LUSAKA, Mar 26 (IPS) - Frederick Tembo, 42, was afflicted by unprecedented bouts of fever, low blood pressure, poor appetite, night sweats and general body weakness. Medical doctors and traditional healers tried to help, but failed to diagnose the illness.That was in Sep 2001. Between Sep 2001 and June 2002 Tembo submi
JOHANNESBURG, Mar 26 (IPS) - If Suresh Babu had his way, the small farmer would be supported to solve the problems of hunger and poverty bedeviling Africa. Babu strongly believes that raising the output of small-scale farmers would increase their incomes and food security, lower food prices, stimulate the economy as a
JOHANNESBURG, Mar 25 (IPS) - Charges of culpable homicide have been laid against the South African minister of health, Manto Tshabala-Msimang, and the minister of trade and industry, Alec Erwin, by the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) - an organisation demanding the provision of anti-AIDS drugs to poor people living wit
MBABANE, Mar 20 (IPS) - Swaziland may not harbour weapons of mass destruction, but sub-Saharan Africa s last absolute monarchy, that rules this kingdom of less than one million people, is becoming increasingly nervous about the doctrine of United States President George W. Bush, which finds little tolerance for une
JOHANNESBURG, Mar 20 (IPS) - The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), a lobby group fighting to get the South African government to make anti-HIV/AIDS drugs, like anti-retrovirals, freely available in the public health system, is getting ready to launch a civil disobedience campaign in support of their demands. Controversi
JOHANNESBURG, Mar 19 (IPS) - The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), a lobby group fighting to get the South African government to make anti-HIV/AIDS drugs, like anti-retrovirals, freely available in the public health system, is getting ready to launch a civil disobedience campaign in support of their demands. Controversi
MBABANE, Mar 14 (IPS) - Ritual murder has allegedly long been a dark and secret part of politics in Swaziland , a conservative kingdom where traditions good and bad, including some destructive superstitions, are a key part of life. The charming traditions draw the tourists, and the nefarious ones cause ambitious people
It happened fast, without a warning. Madina Nakamya died after her husband poured acid on her because she refused to sleep with him without a condom. Both were HIV positive. KAMPALA, Mar 10 (IPS) - In the southern city of Mbarara, Alien Mutari was battered and killed after she refused to have sex with her husband, afte
After more than two decades of campaign to de-stigmatise AIDS, the Zambian government has been stymied by one of its own department. The Ministry of Defence has announced that it would no longer accept HIV-positive recruits. LUSAKA, Mar 10 (IPS) - Defence is not a kindergarten or Red Cross. We need people who are fit,
Hospital admissions arising from unsafe abortions in Argentina rose 50 percent in five years, and multiplied by a factor of 2.5 in some provinces -- a lethal consequence of the economic crisis and soaring poverty. BUENOS AIRES, Mar 7 (IPS) - In 1995, some 53,000 hospital admissions due to complications caused by aborti
Agnes Thom Mavhuto, 68, wonders why women should ever celebrate the International Women s Day every year. HARARE, Mar 7 (IPS) - Sometimes, I wonder if some of these days are worth celebrating because of the struggles we have gone through and continue to face as women, says Mavhuto. Mavhuto, who lives in Epworth, a poor
PHNOM PENH, Feb 28 (IPS) - While Cambodia s male-dominated political parties prepare for the July national election, the country s only women s media group is gearing up to put the candidates in the hot seat. It is no secret what issues animate the team of broadcast journalists and producers at the Women s Media Centre
BANGKOK, Feb 21 (IPS) - There are mixed reactions to a recent proposal to legalise prostitution, but activists and sex workers in Thailand say that this would bring not only financial but social gain, by ensuring better protection of rights. I see that every party can benefit from the change, said Natee Teerarojjanapo
WASHINGTON, Feb 20 (IPS) - Population and women s reproductive-health groups are calling on U.S. President George W. Bush not to impose strict, anti-abortion conditions on his five-year, 15-billion-dollar plans to fight HIV-AIDS in Africa and the Caribbean. They are currently drafting letters to the administration bash
ROME, Feb 20 (IPS) - Development experts from around the world have stressed the crucial significance of rural and agricultural development as a strategy to enable some 900 million rural poor liberate themselves from the yoke of poverty. Government officials from some 160 countries and specialists from United Nations a
NAIROBI, Feb 19 (IPS) - Despite the slow progress at peace talks aimed at ending more than a decade of anarchy in Somalia , the UN Children s Fund (UNICEF) is optimistic about the future - even if the war continues. Steven Lauwerier was UNICEF s project officer based in Baidoa, in southern Somalia, until fighting broke
JOHANNESBURG, Feb 19 (IPS) - Government and the AIDS movement are heading for another winter of discontent in South Africa as attempts to forge a national deal on HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment fell apart at the weekend. Despite a march by more than 10,000 people on the opening of parliament to lobby government to s
ABIDJAN, Feb 18 (IPS) - Prostitution, resulting from extreme poverty, is increasing the risk of HIV/AIDS infection among displaced persons in Cote d Ivoire , according to the UN Children s Fund (UNICEF). In five months of political crisis, nearly a million people have been displaced in Cote d Ivoire, 80 percent of whom
PARIS, Feb 17 (IPS) - French scientists claim at least partial success in developing a vaccine against HIV. This is a world first, Michel Kazatchkine, director of the Paris-based National Agency for Research on AIDS (ANRS, after its French name) announced last week. For the first time in the clinical history of AIDS (A
TOKYO, Feb 17 (IPS) - Twenty-two countries that ended a mini-summit Sunday on trade liberalisation, including the touchy issues of agricultural subsidies and access to cheaper drugs, reached no breakthrough here -- and managed only an agreement to discuss the matter further. But while World Trade Organisation (WTO) dir
NAIROBI, Feb 13 (IPS) - Aid officials warn that they will probably have to cut back on food aid to hungry Eritreans because donors have not responded to repeated appeals for emergency assistance. Some 70 percent of Eritrea s 3.3 million people are facing hunger because of drought in the tiny Red Sea country. A third of
KAMPALA, Feb 12 (IPS) - Mutabazi Enos, 33, is a proud man. He was among the 40 Ugandans who volunteered for the first HIV/AIDS vaccine trials in 1999. Today, Enos stands as an example, proving to sceptics that the vaccine was not harmful. The vaccine is not dangerous, he says. His family was worried about the vaccine,
ISLAMABAD, Feb 11 (IPS) - Shabnum (not her real name), a 30-year-old sex worker in the Pakistani capital, does not ask her clients to use condoms as protection against HIV/AIDS, fearing this might scare them off. She has a network of clients who fixes appointments with her through cellular phone. On average, she has fo
WASHINGTON, Feb 10 (IPS) - Two weeks after announcing his five-year, 15-billion-dollar emergency plan for AIDS relief , U.S. President George W. Bush is under fire by activists for pressing Congress to limit U.S. money for the disease next year and insisting that the vast majority of it be spent on bilateral programmes
KATHMANDU, Feb 7 (IPS) - In a slinky back sari and a miniscule string blouse, Kumar glid across the packed conference room in four-inch heels, as numerous heads turn. The 18-year-old tossed back long, black tresses and bats a luxuriant pair of false eyelashes, before addressing the first
SAIPAN, Northern Mariana Islands , Feb 6 (IPS) - Vanni recalls being dumbfounded when a fellow Filipino migrant worker he knew packed his bags and left this Pacific territory in a rush two years ago. The worker, a hairdresser at a beauty parlour for more than five years, had earlier been keen on staying on in this U.
SAN JOSE, Jan 30 (IPS) - Six Central American countries made strides in their fight against HIV/AIDS by reaching an agreement with five of the world s leading pharmaceutical manufacturers to slash prices on antiretroviral medications. The health ministers of Costa Rica , El Salvador ,
WASHINGTON, Jan 29 (IPS) - While welcoming President George W. Bush s pledge to sharply increase funding for HIV/AIDS programmes overseas, Africa and AIDS activists complain that the plan s funding for the U.N.-backed Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria remains far short of what is required and targets too few c
COTONOU, Jan 29 (IPS) - Rights groups have welcomed a new law, banning all forms of female genital mutilation in Benin . I am pleased with the passage of the law, because, of all the countries in the sub-region, Benin was the last to outlaw female genital mutilation, says Genevieve Boko Nadjo, president of WILDAF-Benin
DAVOS, Switzerland , Jan 27 (IPS) - Despite talk from officials of the World Economic Forum that the exclusive organization is moving towards openness and sharing, African officials and NGOs complained here Monday that the elitist gathering has failed them. Africa didn t really shine here, Trevor Manuel, South African
DAVOS, Switzerland , Jan 25 (IPS) - HIV/AIDS patients in the world s poorest countries could, at long last, have access to an affordable medicine under a new initiative launched at the World Economic Forum. A U.S. pharmaceutical company now allows international generic drugs makers the rights to sell its anti-AIDS drug
WASHINGTON, Jan 23 (IPS) - U.S. activists for Africa are strongly denouncing what they call the administration s malign neglect of the continent, insisting that Africa s problems represent a more serious threat to long-term U.S. security interests than radical Islamist terrorism. The region s economies, collapsing unde
WINDHOEK, Jan 22 (IPS) - From April, the government will introduce a new tax to cater for the growing needs of orphans in Namibia . Namibia is facing an orphan crisis worsened by the high mortality rate due to HIV/AIDS. The amount of the tax to be paid has yet to be determined. Namibia, with a population of 1.8 mil
BUENOS AIRES, Jan 21 (IPS) - Argentina s law on immigration, which dates back to the 1976-1983 military dictatorship, allows authorities to detain and deport foreign nationals without providing any specific reasons and without any intervention by the judiciary. The deportation policy followed by the National Migration
JOHANNESBURG, Jan 21(IPS) - Poverty and famine have left an estimated 14 million people across Southern Africa hungry, and hunger leaves people weak and vulnerable to disease, including HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. United Nations AIDS Agency ( UNAIDS ) representative, Bunmi Makinwa, explains that: A person with HI
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 15 (IPS) - The international community and the news media are paying too much attention to Iraq and too little to the calamities facing Africa, senior U.N. officials said Wednesday. The African continent, they warn, is being threatened by a famine, destabilised by an intense civil war in
ISLAMABAD, Jan 15 (IPS) - Muhammad Shahid, 35, is lucky to be among just a fifth of drug abusers who are able to get into one of Pakistan s 73 treatment centres, which offer a week-long detoxification programme. Detoxification is just the start of his possible recovery and not rehabilitation, but even this was not easy
KATHMANDU, Jan 10 (IPS) - Seated in the pleasant confines of the Blue Diamond Society here in the Nepali capital, Sunil Panta and his peers voice their frustrations and fears in a society that largely views Kathmandu s gay community as invisible, freakish, or abnormal. They talk about human rights abuse - verbal and ph
VIENTIANE, Jan 9 (IPS) - The fact that Laos has one of the lowest HIV/AIDS prevalence rates in South-east Asia can be seen as a success, but experts say this strength may turn into a weakness if it breeds complacency in fighting the pandemic. Less than 0.1 percent of Laotians aged 15 to 40 have HIV/AIDS, compared to ne
RIO DE JANEIRO, Jan 8 (IPS) - Violations of the labour rights of people living with HIV, the AIDS virus, and the stiffening of eligibility requirements for social security coverage in Brazil make the conditions faced by HIV-positive people, especially women, even more difficult. Violations of those rights are the most
JOHANNESBURG, Jan 8 (IPS) - After years of consultation with labour unions, business organisations and academicians, a new Immigration Act was unveiled late in 2002. This replacement for the notorious Aliens Control Act, which for years was used to block black African immigration, pleased South Africa s largest labour
MBABANE, Jan 3 (IPS) - Swaziland s labour unions are once again taking the lead in the pro-democracy movement that seeks to transform King Mswati from sub-Saharan Africa s last absolute monarch into a constitutional monarch within the democratic framework of an elected government. We wish to see the king as a symbol of
BANGKOK, Jan 2 (IPS) - A lack of regular condom use by sexually active youth in Thailand has triggered a rise in HIV infection rates among teenagers, say public health officials. Studies have shown that the infection rate among sexually active Thai teens rose to 17 percent in 2002 compared to 11 percent in the previous
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