Gustavo Capdevila

GENEVA, May 19 2006 (IPS) – The most controversial debates at the 59th World Health Assembly will involve the question of intellectual property rights and health, and Taiwan s request to participate as an observer.
During its May 22-27 session, the Assembly the decision-making body of the World Health Organisation (WHO) will also discuss questions like the eradication of poliomyelitis, the destruction of the smallpox virus stocks, the spread of avian flu, and the international migration of health personnel.

Denis Aitken, adviser to WHO Director-General Lee Jong-wook, acknowledged the difficulty presented by the debate on intellectual property rights and health, an issue that has been the focus in recent months of a report commissioned by the WHO itse…

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Jun 21 2006 (IPS) – The National Rifle Association (NRA), the most powerful pro-gun lobby in the United States, is leading a campaign to literally flood the Sri Lanka Mission to the United Nations with letters and postcards protesting an upcoming conference on small arms.
Ambassador Prasad Kariyawasam of Sri Lanka, president-designate of the two-week long conference beginning Monday, told IPS that the NRA campaign is totally misguided because the meeting is not aimed at banning small arms or controlling weapons that are legally manufactured, purchased or traded in conformity with national laws .

At last count, his Mission had received over 100,000 letters, post cards and email messages most of them arriving at the staggering rate of about 4…

Helda Martínez

BOGOTA, Aug 7 2006 (IPS) – The Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between Colombia and the United States that could be signed in October or November this year will maintain the tariff exemptions already enjoyed by Colombia s flourishing flower industry. But there are no plans for higher wages and better working conditions for the industry s 100,000 workers.
The floriculture sector has grown over four decades to the point where exports were worth over 870 million dollars in 2005.

In just 35 years, Colombia has become the second largest exporter of fresh cut flowers in the world, after the Netherlands, says the web site of the Colombian Association of Flower Exporters (ASOCOLFLORES), a private entity created in 1973 which now has 200 members.

Colombia is…

Moyiga Nduru

JOHANNESBURG, Sep 8 2006 (IPS) – For the region in the world worst-affected by AIDS it is, to say the least, an unwelcome development: an outbreak of tuberculosis (TB) in South Africa s south-eastern KwaZulu-Natal province, caused by a strain of the disease that resists almost all forms of treatment.
To date, 52 of the 53 patients known to have been infected died within about 25 days of the disease first being suspected, said a statement by delegates at a meeting currently underway in the South African financial centre of Johannesburg to discuss how TB resistance can best be dealt with. The two-day gathering, which ends Friday, has brought together TB experts from the World Health Organisation (WHO) and elsewhere.

This extremely high mortality is in part…

• CBT เริ่มตั้งแต่วันที่ 25 มีนาคม ถึงวันที่ 1 เมษายน โดยมีผู้เข้าร่วมเกมในวันแรกมากกว่า 2 หมื่นคนในภูมิภาค SEA
• ผู้เล่นในภูมิภาค SEA ให้ผลตอบรับอย่างดีพร้อมทั้งรอคอยให้เกมเปิดอย่างเป็นทางการ

บริษัทเกมโกลบอลอย่าง Gravity ได้สิ้นสุด CBT ของเกม MMORPG ข้ามแพลตฟอร์ม Ragnarok V : Returns ทั้ง…

เป็นที่ฮือฮาในวงการเกมปลูกผักอีกครั้ง เมื่อคุณ Eric Barone ผู้พัฒนาเพียงคนเดียวของเกม Stardew Valley ได้ทำการโพสต์ผ่านช่องทาง Twitter ของตัวเองที่ใช้ชื่อว่า ConcernedApe โดยมีการโพสต์สั้น ๆ เพียงแค่คำว่า “iridium scythe” ซึ่งหมายถึงเครื่องมือทำการเกษตรประเภทเคียวตัดหญ้าที่อยู่ในระดับ Ir…

Zoltán Dujisin

BUDAPEST, Sep 28 2006 (IPS) – A coalition of health experts have staged a protest parallel to the Intergovernmental Forum on Chemical Safety, expressing concern over a recent policy turn by the World Health Organisation (WHO) that calls for fighting malaria by spraying the controversial DDT chemical.
The conference, taking place in Budapest in Hungary, brings together representatives from government bodies, industry groups, scientific associations and non-governmental organisations in an attempt to reach consensus over issues of global chemical safety..

The fifth session of this five-day conference, ending Sep. 29, will focus on Chemical Safety for Sustainable Development.

Participants at the Intergovernmental Forum on Chemical Safety (IFCS) co…

Moyiga Nduru

JOHANNESBURG, Nov 9 2006 (IPS) – The 2006 Human Development Report, #39Beyond Scarcity: Power, Poverty and the Global Water Crisis #39, focuses on the ongoing problems that surround provision of potable water and sanitation. The document is being launched Thursday in Cape Town, South Africa, by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
Global figures presented by the report #39s authors are depressing: currently, more than a billion people are denied the right to clean water, while 2.6 billion do not have adequate sanitation.

Each year 1.8 million children die from diarrhoea that could be prevented with access to clean water and a toilet; 443 million school days are lost to water-related illnesses; and almost 50 percent of all people in developing…

Mohammed A. Salih

ARBIL, Dec 6 2006 (IPS) – The call from his mother changed Dr. Harb Zakko s life. Someone has been calling me to open the door, saying he has something for you, his mother said.
Soon after, apparently the same person called him at his clinic, asking personal questions. The doctor got the message. He returned home and asked his family to pack. Two days later they drove out of their ethnically mixed Karrada neighbourhood in Baghdad and headed for Arbil in Kurdistan to the north.

The calls had sounded like the beginning of an abduction threat. They came only ten days after a colleague s son was abducted. The family paid 10,000 dollars ransom, but got back only the body of their son.

Such stories are common in Karrada neighbourhood, home to many …

Stephen Leahy

BROOKLIN, Canada, Jan 22 2007 (IPS) – Enforced quarantines may be needed in South Africa and elsewhere to bring a deadly, contagious and drug-resistant strain of tuberculosis under control, health experts say.
An outbreak of extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) in South Africa s KwaZulu-Natal province gained the attention of the World Health Organisation last year. Hundreds have been infected and the fatality rate is extremely high.

The problem is a lot bigger than we know, said Jerome Amir Singh, an HIV/AIDS expert at the Nelson R. Mandela School of Medicine, University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban.

The high rates of normal TB and HIV infection in KZN ( KwaZulu-Natal) has created a very explosive disease cocktail, Singh told IPS from…