WASHINGTON, Mar 26 2013 (IPS) – Environmentalists and others here are reacting with concern to a surprise announcement on Monday of a major deal that would see U.S. natural gas exported to the United Kingdom, marking the first time that such sales have been permitted.
The agreement, between the UK energy company Centrica and the U.S.-based Cheniere Energy Partners, would see more than 1.7 million metric tonnes of liquefied natural gas (LNG) per year shipped to the United Kingdom, starting in 2018. The U.K.’s gas supply has been extremely tight this winter, and the new sales would satisfy requirements for around 1.8 million British homes.Increasing demand via exports for a dirty, dangerous process is not something we think is a good idea.
The deal would mark the fir…
A man carries water through a busy alley in Kathmandu. Experts say water management is vital in South Asia due to erratic rain patterns. Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS
KATHMANDU, May 16 2013 (IPS) – With a combined population of over 1.7 billion, which includes some of the world’s poorest but also a sizeable middle class with a growing spending capacity, South Asia is a policymaker’s nightmare.
The region’s urban population is set to double by 2030, with India alone adding 90 million city dwellers to its metropolises since 2000.
Over 75 percent of South Asia’s residents live in rural areas, with agriculture accounting for 60 percent of the labour force, accord…
An estimated half of fresh produce in Papua New Guinea is lost between harvesting and marketing. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS
WASHINGTON, Jun 6 2013 (IPS) – A quarter of all food calories grown for human consumption is being lost or wasted, either purposefully or otherwise, according to new estimates.
With high food prices now widely seen as a new normal even as food demand across the globe continues to rapidly expand, advocates and development experts here are calling for concerted national and international action in a way that has not yet been seen.“To a great extent, the scope of this food waste is a technology failure.” — WRI’s Craig Hanson
“T…
Biofortified food crops growing in a municipal garden in Itaguaí. Credit: Courtesy of EMBRAPA
RIO DE JANEIRO, Jul 17 2013 (IPS) – In less than 10 years, consumers throughout Brazil will have access to eight biofortified “superfoods” being developed by the country’s scientists. A pilot initiative is currently underway in 15 municipalities.
Biofortification uses conventional plant breeding methods to enhance the concentration of micronutrients in food crops through a combination of laboratory and agricultural techniques.
The goal is to combat micronutrient deficiencies, which can cause severe health problems like anaemia, blindness, impaired immune response a…
A young mother carries her baby out of Ramón González Coro maternity hospital in Havana. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS
HAVANA, Sep 6 2013 (IPS) – In nearly all of Latin America, illegal abortion is a serious public health problem. But in Cuba, where abortion is legal, it is being overused by teenagers.
Three times as many teenagers terminate their pregnancies than carry them to term. Many pregnant 15 to 19 year olds have already had one or more abortions according to their medical histories, researchers find.
Having 76 percent of pregnant teenagers electing to abort is a public health problem, said Dr. Jorge Peláez, vice president of the Cuban Society of…
Nurses treat an injured child at the Lady Reading Hospital in Peshawar. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS.
PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Nov 16 2013 (IPS) – Ajab Gul is haunted by bloody scenes. He hears women crying and children screaming. “I can’t sleep,” says the 25-year-old health worker at a well-known Pakistani hospital in the frontier city that tends to terror victims.
He works at Lady Reading Hospital (LRH) in Peshawar which is said to receive 98 percent of all terror attack cases in the restive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
And Gul’s job is particularly difficult. Posted at the hospital’s accident and emergency department – one of the largest in Pakistan he…
KAMPALA, Dec 20 2013 (IPS) – The Ugandan government is struggling to live up to its promises to protect the local production of antiretrovirals and anti-malarials from competition from abroad.
Following a 2008 agreement with Indian generic drug maker Cipla Limited, a Ugandan company, Quality Chemicals Limited (QCIL), began manufacturing antiretrovirals (ARVs) and artemesinin-based combination therapies (ACTs) in 2009.
But locally manufactured drugs are proving more expensive than generic ARVs produced in India, China and Pakistan, and even by big pharmaceutical firms in the West.
According to the Uganda Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association, in 2010 Uganda’s pharmaceutical market was worth an estimated 276 million dollars; 90 percent of these medicines were …
The past year has seen multiple state-level legislative attempts to label or ban GM products. Credit: Bigstock
WASHINGTON, Mar 3 2014 (IPS) – A third of U.S. organic farmers have experienced problems in their fields due to the nearby use of genetically modified crops, and over half of those growers have had loads of grain rejected because of unwitting GMO contamination.
Of U.S. farmers that took part in a , the results of which were released on Monday, more than 80 percent reported being concerned over the impact of genetically modified (GM) crops on their farms, with some 60 percent saying they’re “very concerned”.”USDA has been extremely lax and, in our opin…
STOCKHOLM, Apr 25 2014 (IPS) – For policy makers and activists working for sexual and reproductive health and rights, it’s been a long road since the landmark International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) held in Cairo in 1994.
Back then, the abortion issue pitted groups against one another, even as frustrated activists tried to keep the spotlight on human rights and development. Still, the conference prepared the groundwork for international development goals, and 179 governments adopted an ambitious “programme of action”.”It’s the other way around. Countries become wealthier when people have smaller families.”
Twenty years later, policy makers can point to major achievements, but divisive issues remain, and the status of women is nowhere nea…
Those displaced by a military offensive in northern Pakistan spend hours on the roadside in 45-degree heat. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai
PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Jun 23 2014 (IPS) – Shaukat Ali, a shopkeeper originally hailing from Miramshah in the Northern Waziristan Agency of Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), looks exhausted as he sits outside a makeshift shelter with his family of 10.
They traveled for a whole day to reach this tiny house outside of Peshawar, capital of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province that borders Afghanistan, and now count themselves among the thousands of civilian refugees fleeing a full-scale military offensive a…