TOKYO, Dec 2 2009 (IPS) – Sachiko Yamada has been hoping to spend her retirement years traveling and living the good life. Today she devotes her time to taking care of her 90-year- old mother five days a week, leaving her with two days off while her mother goes to a care centre for the elderly.
Kaoru Arai (left), 88, feels lucky that she is still healthy and lives with her son, Kiyoshi (right). …
Eli Clifton
WASHINGTON, Jan 13 2010 (IPS) – Suicides among United States military veterans ballooned by 26 percent from 2005 to 2007, according to new statistics released by the Veterans Affairs (VA) department.
Of the more than 30,000 suicides in this country each year, fully 20 percent of them are acts by veterans, said VA Secretary Eric Shinseki at a VA-sponsored suicide prevention conference on Monday. That means on average 18 veterans commit suicide each day. Five of those veterans are under our care at VA.
The spike in the suicide rate can most clearly be attributed to the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the high number of veterans returning to the U.S. with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
We have now nearly two million vets of Iraq an…
Mary Kiio
NAIROBI, Mar 19 2010 (IPS) – After torrential rains and floods claimed lives in Kenya s North Rift region, hundreds of displaced people are now in dire need of relief aid.
In Turkana, one of the worst affected areas, hundreds of homes have been washed away by floods or buried under landslides. Access to clean water and sanitation have become a major issue in the area, where the displaced have to relieve themselves in bushes.
My house was suddenly filled with water. My toilet was carried away, and also the vegetables, which I had planted on my farm, lamented Godfrey Chume, one of the displaced residents in the Turkana area.
The father of two said he gathered up his family members and quickly ran up a hill to be swept away by the torrents. My boys cam…
Paul Virgo
ROME, Apr 26 2010 (IPS) – The case of the three Italians arrested this month on suspicion of trying to assassinate a southern Afghan governor concluded with a happy ending of sorts and a sure fire certainty an uncompromising attitude that makes war-zone medical aid doubly dangerous.
Italian surgeon Marco Garatti (extreme right, holding x-ray). Credit: Emergency
The members of Milan-based non-governmental organisation (NGO) Emergency , inlcuding surgeon Marco Garatti, nurse Matteo Dell Aira and logist…
Mon Mon Myat
RANGOON, Jun 2 2010 (IPS) – The only son in his family, Maung Maung Oo was forced to marry when he was 24 years old. By then he had been carrying on a sexual relationship with a man for four years which he continued even after his marriage.
For the next 14 years, Oo led a double life. But in 2005, he finally decided to be true to himself: He left his wife and three children for his male partner.
My wife was so shocked when she learned of my affair with a man, says Oo. But I can t change how I feel though I have the body of a man.
Oo, however, is still living a life in the shadows. Although he and his partner are now living together, their relationship remains a secret to most people. My partner does not want people to know we are living together…
Fidelis Zvomuya
GURUVE, Zimbabwe, Jul 27 2010 (IPS) – Eleven-year-old Irene Thembo* lies curled like a foetus on a white wooden bench for outpatients at a clinic in rural Zimbabwe. The orphan, whose parents died of HIV-related illnesses, is terribly sick.
Weighing around 16 kilograms, her hair is thin and patchy, her eyes dull. Since the age of two she has regularly visited the clinic for treatment.
On her medical cards, nurses have listed the range of illnesses the child has suffered from over the years: pneumonia; tuberculosis; vomiting; skin rashes; fevers; malnutrition; and diarrhoea. But not one of the staff has recommended that she be tested for HIV, despite her being a regular visitor at the clinic and showing clear symptoms of the virus.
In the company…
Kristin Palitza interviews labour and gender expert GRISCHELDA HARTMAN
CAPE TOWN, Aug 25 2010 (IPS) – South African farm workers especially female labourers continue to be exploited, despite the existence of national labour laws and regulations designed to protect them. But in the absence of information and education about their rights, workers have a hard time claiming them.
…
WASHINGTON, Sep 16 2010 (IPS) – Ten years after setting the goal of halving the proportion of people suffering from poverty and hunger by 2015, only mixed success can be found for the U.N. s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), and the degree of success is dependent not only on what country is examined but which evaluation is used.
Everyone seems to agree, however, that the food and financial crises of recent years drastically affected the progress on hunger.
The Food and Agriculture Organisation and World Food Programme announced Tuesday that the number of people suffering from chronic hunger this year has decreased by 98 million to 925 million.
But that same day Oxfam America pointed out in a report that this decrease means that the proportion of the world s hungr…
Irwin Loy
VIENTIANE, Nov 9 2010 (IPS) – Eighteen-year-old Phongsavath Manithong rubbed his eyes with the back of his arms as he described how his life changed forever.
Ta Doangchom beside homemade prosthetic limbs in the Cooperative Orthotic and Prosthetic Enterprise (COPE) National Rehabilitation Centre Credit: Irwin Loy/IPS
He was not even born yet whe…
Damakant Jayshi
KATHMANDU, Dec 16 2010 (IPS) – For the last 17 years, Keshari Maharjan has been going door to door in the outskirts of the Nepali capital to tell people about the services available at health centres in their communities, as well as about how to prevent certain diseases.
A patient being checked by a nurse at Satungal Health Post, Kathmandu, Nepal. Credit: Damakant Jayshi/IPS
It hasn t always been easy for Maharjan and other community health vol…