Sonny Inbaraj JAKARTA, Feb 22 2007 (IPS) – A ban on backyard poultry, ordered earlier this month to contain the spread of the bird flu virus, has hit many of the Indonesian capital s 12 million residents hard since they depend on keeping chickens and ducks for a living. A ban on backyard poultry, ordered…
Peter Ischyrion PORT OF SPAIN, Apr 5 2007 (IPS) – Activists have vowed the challenge the legality of a decision by Trinidad s Environmental Management Authority (EMA) this week to green-light the construction of a controversial aluminium smelter plant, terming the approval a declaration of war. We have been betrayed by the EMA we were…
Patricia Grogg HAVANA, May 10 2007 (IPS) – A Cuban child is drawing a train, heavily loaded with emergency food supplies that are about to be airlifted and dropped into areas where hunger is just a normal part of life. The drawing will be entered in an annual international competition called WFP in Action, organised…
Marwaan Macan-Markar KO SI BOYA, Jun 12 2007 (IPS) – Till over a year ago, health officials worried over maintaining the cold chain for vaccines delivered to children on this island. These included the ten given to new-born Thais, such as those for polio, diphtheria, tetanus, Japanese encephalitis and tuberculosis. The nearly 30-minute journey on…
Marwaan Macan-Markar BANGKOK, Jul 12 2007 (IPS) – End June saw health officials in Singapore confronted with a worrying trend in the affluent, squeaky-clean city-state. During two separate weeks that month, dengue fever cases had reached epidemic levels. Aedes aegypti mosquito. Credit: USDA The second week had seen 401 cases reported, while the last week…
Eli Clifton WASHINGTON, Aug 15 2007 (IPS) – New statistics from the United States Department of Labour offer greater insight into the number of defence contractors killed in Afghanistan and Iraq, but questions remain about compensation for injured or dead contract workers and their families. The data, which was requested by the office of Congresswoman…
Stephen Leahy BROOKLIN, Canada, Sep 12 2007 (IPS) – Rapidly industrialising India and China have claimed four of the top 10 most polluted places on the planet for the first time, according to a report by U.S. and European environmental groups. Women workers in Sukinda, India are exposed to contaminated dust and water, resulting in…
Milagros Salazar LIMA, Oct 9 2007 (IPS) – Social organisations in Peru have joined forces to save the Mantaro river, which is being killed by pesticides, untreated sewage, and the waste products dumped by the mining industry. The river, which runs through the Andes mountain range in central Peru at between 3,400 and 4,300 metres…
Thalif Deen UNITED NATIONS, Nov 1 2007 (IPS) – When the Israeli Air Force destroyed a slew of oil storage tanks and a key power station in Lebanon in July 2006, the environmental damage was described as devastating. A holiday beach near Jbeil, which was heaviliy polluted by oil as a result of the Israeli…
Zoltán Dujisin PRAGUE, Nov 30 2007 (IPS) – The Czech government has begun an 890,000-dollar information campaign supporting the U.S. plan to set up a radar station in the Czech Republic. Opponents of the plan led by the Social Democrats want some of that money to fund alternative information campaigns so as to create an…