Hospital emergency rooms have shut after recurring attacks. Credit: Cam McGrath/IPS.
CAIRO, Sep 3 2012 (IPS) – The emergency room of Mansoura International Hospital is closed, a lock and chain securing its entrance. Ambulances carrying stroke and burn victims are ordered to go elsewhere.
Just hours earlier, dozens of people stormed this mid-sized hospital in northern Egypt, carrying a relative injured in a car accident. The group overpowered the military officers guarding the front door, fired shots in the air, and threatened to kill doctors and nurses unless they operated immediately on their relative.
Five security personnel were wounded in the att…
WASHINGTON, Oct 18 2012 (IPS) – Shale gas extraction is putting some U.S. communities at risk of health issues, new research released here Thursday warns.
Close to 70 percent of participants in a reported an increase in throat irritation, and almost 80 percent stated they have had more sinus problems after being exposed to natural gas extraction in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania.
“For too long, the oil and gas industry and state regulators have dismissed community members’ health complaints as ‘false’ or ‘anecdotal’,” said Nadia Steinzor, the project’s lead author. “With this research, they cannot credibly ignore communities any longer.”
The report, by Earthworks’ Oil Gas Accountability Project, a non-profit environmental organisation, surv…
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, India , Nov 19 2012 (IPS) – Sreelakshmi, an office executive in a major diagnostic laboratory in Thiruvananthapuram, the capital city of the southern Indian state of Kerala, ends her 11-hour working day to return home at night to a mountain of domestic chores.
At 35, she is already diabetic and vulnerable to disorders ranging from obesity and depression to hypertension and chronic backache.
Health experts warn that Sreelakshmi represents an increasing number of high-powered Indian working women who juggle workplace and domestic responsibilities in an effort to keep everyone around them happy, while disregarding the toll this hectic lifestyle takes on their minds and bodies.
For ambitious, middle-class women such as Sreelakshmi, hailing from a …
In one recent study, 84 percent of fish sampled at sites located near potential mercury contamination were not safe for consumption for more than one meal per month. Credit: Jeremy Keith/cc by 2.0
WASHINGTON, Jan 10 2013 (IPS) – Even as government negotiators from around the world prepare to gather next week for a final round of talks on a new international treaty limiting the use of mercury, scientists and activists are warning that the draft treaty is both too weak and too limited in scope to have a major impact.
“Based on what’s happened so far, based on the draft text, we have strong doubts that the treaty will actually be sufficient to reduce global lev…
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…