Enrique Gili
SAN DIEGO, California, Feb 9 2007 (IPS) – A new breed of prospector is hunting for buried treasure on the sea floor, this time looking for breakthrough drugs derived from the natural heritage of the world s oceans.
Scientists at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography believe that this vast and unexplored region may hold medical treatments for a host of ailments, from infectious diseases to cancer.
From his seaside corner office overlooking the Pacific Ocean, Dr. William Fenical, director of the Scripps Centre for Marine Biotechnology, presides over a research facility that has discovered more microorganisms in a single teaspoon of ocean water than there are trees in an entire rainforest.
He believes they have the potential to save the lives of mi…
Interview with Patrick Findane
JOHANNESBURG, Mar 20 2007 (IPS) – In a State of the Nation address delivered in February, South African President Thabo Mbeki said his country had already achieved the Millennium Development Goals in respect of basic water supply, with improvement of access from 59 percent in 1994 to 83 percent in 2006.
Eight development goals were adopted during the United Nations Millennium Summit in 2000, in a bid to raise living standards globally by 2015. They include halving the number of people without sustainable access to potable water.
At present, a household of approximately eight people in South Africa receives some 6,000 litres of free water monthly.
However, Patrick Findane, assistant coordinator for the Coalition Against Water Pri…
George Njogopa
DAR ES SALAAM, Apr 23 2007 (IPS) – While the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are a bright idea , the hidden agenda of western countries makes it impossible for African states like Tanzania to achieve the goals, expounds actor Rashid Mkwinda.
He is one of the people whose thoughts IPS canvassed in the streets of Dar es Salaam in a series of random interviews about the MDGs. For him, Southern Africa s ability to achieve the MDGs is firmly connected to the superpowers international policy approach to developing states.
Indeed, Mkwinda wonders if the MDGs are not like other global programmes which have as their aim the exertion of power over poor countries and the exploitation of Africa s resources.
It is clear that America and i…
Pilirani Semu-Banda
BLANTYRE, May 31 2007 (IPS) – Malawi s utilisation of energy resources is heavily dominated by firewood, which provides 93 percent of all energy needs. Current annual household consumption of firewood and charcoal are at 7.5 million tons, exceeding sustainable supply by 3.7 million tons.
Poverty and population growth in the country are placing escalating pressures on Malawi s indigenous forests which, the ministry of environment says, translates into an annual destruction of approximately 50,000 to 70,000 hectares of forest.
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is hopeful that a new ethanol-based innovation will go some way to addressing Malawi s energy problem. The UNDP has included a local company s development of an ethanol-based stov…
Barin Masoud
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 26 2007 (IPS) – While some encouraging advancements have been made to contain a global drug epidemic, opium production in Afghanistan s southern provinces continues to climb, the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) reported Tuesday.
Poppy eradication in Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan. Credit: UN Photo/ Freshta Dunya
There is some grounds for optimism that the runaway train of drug addiction is being slowed down, said Antonio Maria Costa, executive director …
Tonderai Kwidini*
HARARE, Jul 31 2007 (IPS) – Taps in the Zimbabwean capital, Harare, are running dry even though the city s main supply dams are more than 60 percent full, according to figures from the Zimbabwe National Water Authority (ZINWA). With more than half of Harare #39s three million inhabitants now experiencing water shortages, residents are resorting to desperate measures to find supplies.
Sewage gushing out in front of the Mashapa home. Credit: Wilson Maduna
Carrying a large bucket to work has become a daily…
Nitin Jugran Bahuguna
NEW DELHI, Aug 29 2007 (IPS) – Though adolescents are said to be at the centre of the AIDS epidemic and India has the largest number of infections in Asia, this conservative country continues to shy away from incorporating sex education in school curricula.
As many as 11 of India s 29 state governments have either banned or are in the process of dropping sex education from school programmes. Education and health are state domains in India s federal system.
Such a state of affairs recently prompted India s outspoken federal minister for women and child development, Renuka Chaudhary, to remark that India seemed to her like a nation of hypocrites .
Among major states that have banned sex education in state-run schools are western Maharashtra…
Zofeen Ebrahim
LAHORE, Oct 1 2007 (IPS) – The only time I’ve been to Rawalpindi was in 2004 when I was taken by an ‘agent’ (middleman in the human organ trade) to a hospital there to sell my kidney, says Faqir Masih, 23. He never wants to visit the city, again.
Coming from Youhanabad, a poor Christian settlement on the fringes of Lahore, capital of Punjab province, Faqir, a labourer, makes Rs 250 (four US dollars) for a day’s toil -– when he can find work. I was enticed into selling a kidney by the thought of marriage, he said. The agent promised me Rs 100,000 (1,666 dollars) for the kidney, which was transplanted to an Arab.
But Faqir was duped. The agent fled, literally throwing him out on the road with not even enough money to board a bus back to Lahore.…
Jie Cao*
TIELING, Oct 19 2007 (IPS) – When I was young, if we had visitors, we d go to the river to catch fish with a net. We could catch many big fish of different kinds, recalled septuagenarian Xie, who lives in this village in the north-eastern Chinese province of Liaoning. At that time, there were big willows on the riverbank, so the villagers could relax under the trees in summer.
The river he was reminiscing about was the Tiaozi River, a tributary of the Liao River that feeds 30 million people. But today, the river is more a canal, given the stench of rotten fish and the disgusting color of excrement. There are no fish in the water, no plants along the banks.
Chemical pollutants coming from upstream, added Xie, have adversely affected the river over the last de…
Marwaan Macan-Markar
BANGKOK, Nov 25 2007 (IPS) – Public health and HIV/AIDS activists from the developing world are seeking to break the monopoly over drugs held by pharmaceutical giants through a new global campaign designed to influence international debate over the issue.
Formulated at the end of a three-day meeting, last week, which brought some 200 participants from 20 countries to the Thai capital, the campaign seeks a new way out of the current patent system; one that will encourage innovation of new drugs and access for all, says Kannikar Kijtiwatchakul, an organiser of the International Conference on Compulsory Licensing: Innovation and Access for All. What we have now is innovation controlled by the pharmaceutical industry that lets them have a monopoly on drugs. <…