Mitch Moxley
BEIJING, Dec 21 2010 (IPS) – After her run to the finals of the 2005 Super Girl talent contest, Wang Bei, from central China s Hubei province, lived on the cusp of pop stardom. In November, Wang opted for cosmetic surgery in an effort to improve her chances of success.
But the 24-year-old s death in the operating room, officially ruled an accident, has prompted nationwide outrage over the dismal standards of China s rapidly growing cosmetic surgery industry.
About 2.2 million surgeries were conducted in China in 2009, comprising 12.7 percent of the global total, a report by the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (ISAPS) found. State media have put the figure above three million surgeries. According to the Chinese Association of Plastics an…
Aprille Muscara
WASHINGTON, Feb 4 2011 (IPS) – As food prices rose for the seventh month in a row in January, contributing to recent popular unrest in the Middle East and a spike in commodities purchases by developing countries last week, some analysts are quick to make comparisons to the dry years of 2007-2008.
But others warn against panic and oversimplified predictions of an impending food crisis, which contribute to price volatility.
It is important to underline and we ve been trying this rather unsuccessfully a high food price index doesn t necessarily mean a food crisis, Abdolreza Abbassian, senior economist at the United Nation s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), told IPS in a telephone interview.
After a crisis in 1974, world food prices fell s…
TOKYO, Mar 14 2011 – A second explosion has rocked Japan s stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power complex, sending a plume of smoke into the air and touching off fresh concerns of a radioactive leak in the quake and tsunami-hit country.
The International Atomic Energy Agency said on Monday that the reactor had not been damaged.
The plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO), said in a press release that the blast was believed to be a hydrogen explosion at the plant s No.3 reactor and that 11 workers were injured. The first explosion happened at the same plant on Saturday, at the reactor No. 1.
TEPCO said that the impact of radioactive materials to the outside environment is under investigation.
Yukio Edano, Japan s chief cabinet secretary, said that a…
WASHINGTON, Apr 5 2011 (IPS) – Though the World Health Organisation (WHO) has focused this year s World Health Day Apr. 7 on prioritising the struggle against the global spread of antimicrobial resistance (AMR), scores of international researchers and scientists fear this decision is coming too late, with 2011 already shadowed by the failure of pharmaceutical antibiotics to curb the proliferation of diseases.
Drug-resistant tuberculosis has been reported in a st…
Kara Santos
MANILA, May 9 2011 (IPS) – In a small women s clinic in the congested community of San Andres Bukid in the Philippine capital, a mother of 11 is availing herself of family planning services for the first time in her life.
Birth control is making a comeback at clinics in Manila after a 2000 city ordinance discouraged the distribution of contraceptives. Cr…
Matt Carr
BOLTON, Jun 10 2011 (IPS) – The British Home Office has ruled that a severely disabled five-year-old girl should be returned to Algeria. The ruling demonstrates just how tough some European governments are getting on immigration.
Rania Abdechakour Credit: Bolton News Picture Agency
Rania Abdechakour originally came to the UK in 2008 to stay temporarily with her English aunt Johaina Taleb and her Algerian uncle Moussa in Bolton in the north of England. She came to receive conductive education a form of physiotherapy that her aunt and uncle paid for privat…
Emilio Godoy* – Tierramérica
MEXICO CITY, Jun 21 2011 (IPS) – Serious concerns about industrial livestock production in Mexico have been raised once again by recent controversies over the use of the non-steroidal anabolic clenbuterol and a feed medicine for poultry containing aresenic.
Cattle in Mexico Credit: Courtesy of Central Campesina Cardenista
Clenbuterol is a decongestant and bronchodilator prescribed for breathing disorders, but it also stimulates muscle growth, which is why it is used by livestock breeders to fatten poultry, ca…
Miriam Gathigah
NAIROBI, Jul 25 2011 (IPS) – For the first time ever, the Kenyan finance minister has allocated almost four million dollars, about 3.6 percent of the primary education budget, to provide free sanitary pads to schoolgirls.
One of the many self-employed women who can access microfinance credit through the Women Enterprise Fund. Credit: Miriam Gathigah/IPS
This comes after persistent pressure…
Stephen de Tarczynski
MELBOURNE, Aug 28 2011 (IPS) – Concern is growing for the mental health of thousands of people locked up indefinitely in this country s immigration detention system.
In July, the office of the Commonwealth Ombudsman, a statutory body handling complaints about investigations into government departments and agencies, outlined an inquiry into suicides and self- harm among immigration detainees.
I was alarmed that in the first week of June when I visited Christmas Island (detention centres), more than 30 incidents of self-harm by detainees held there were reported, said ombudsman Allan Asher.
The investigation was announced after an increase in such incidents was reported to International Health and Medical Services (IHMS), the contracted he…
Sana Altaf
SRINAGAR, Oct 14 2011 (IPS) – Fourteen-year-old Shafat Ahmad works as a domestic helper in the house of a Srinagar-based government employee in Kashmir. His younger sister embroiders shawls in an unregistered textile venture in her native village of Beeru.
When my father first brought me here, my employer promised to send me to school, Shafat told IPS. Though he is keen to pursue his education, he has yet to attend a single class.
The Ahmed siblings story is just one among thousands, as increasing numbers of children across the Kashmir Valley become mired in a child labour epidemic that strips them of their childhood and the chance for a decent education.
Kashmir s handicrafts industry, which has long served as the backbone of the state economy, ha…