Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Jul 27 2007 (IPS) – Traffic accidents in Argentina have been claiming an average of 20 lives a day over the past decade, making it the top country in Latin America for these tragedies. They are also the main cause of death among people under 35, but in spite of this there are no official plans to end the slaughter on the roads.
The worst thing is that in spite of the statistics, there is no state policy to tackle the problem, and so we have no national executive authority in charge of road safety, nor a programme, nor a budget for it, Eduardo Bertotti, the director of the private Institute of Road Safety and Education (ISEV), told IPS.

The political powers-that-be are not concerned about it, and we think this is a serious cultural probl…

Claudia Ciobanu

BUCHAREST, Aug 28 2007 (IPS) – Romania was hoping to put an end this year to a ban on pork exports to the European Union (EU), but several swine pest outbreaks at the farms of U.S. company Smithfield will cause the interdiction to be prolonged for at least two more years.
Romania joined the EU Jan. 1 this year. Although free movement of goods is a basic functioning principle of the union, the European Commission, the executive arm of the EU, decided to maintain, even after Romania #39s integration, a ban on Romanian pork exports in place since 2004.

The interdiction was introduced because several outbreaks of swine pest had been discovered in the country, and European officials wanted to prevent the virus from spreading.

Swine fever is a highly…

Adrianne Appel

BOSTON, Sep 28 2007 (IPS) – A new form of AIDS treatment for children, targeted at families in rural areas, will be available within months, according to an official from the World Health Organisation (WHO).
The latest formulation, made up of standard AIDS medicines, is easier to take and simpler to dispense than current drug regimens. These require many pills to be taken several times a day, and are so complicated that only health workers operating from pharmacies, city hospitals and the like can provide them, said Charlie Gilks: head of treatment in the HIV department of the WHO.

It s the reason so few kids are on treatment outside of capitals, he told IPS during a recent conference sponsored by Harvard Medical School in the eastern U.S. city of Bost…

Milagros Salazar

LIMA, Nov 22 2007 (IPS) – The Mantaro river basin, one of the main water sources in Peru s central Andes mountains, is a dump for toxic substances, according to an independent scientific study. Lead levels, for instance, are 180 times higher than those accepted by the World Health Organisation (WHO).
The study shows that the river basin is a veritable sewer, containing cyanide, lead, arsenic, cadmium and mercury, used in mining, coliform bacteria from human waste, and nitrates from agrochemicals.

The pollution has multiple causes, Iván Lanegra, natural resources and environment manager for the regional government of Junín, told IPS. He has signed an agreement to implement urgent measures with the local social organisations that produced the report.…

Steven Lang

JOHANNESBURG, Jan 2 2008 (IPS) – The South African Department of Water Affairs and Forestry has narrowly missed one of its most important targets, aimed at improving sanitation for the country #39s poorest people but plans to make up the remaining ground soon.
In his State of the Nation address in February 2006, President Thabo Mbeki said, we must completely eradicate, in the established settlements, the bucket toilets by the end of 2007.

His target has been met in six of the country #39s nine provinces. In the Free State, North West and Eastern Cape, the deadline for doing so has been extended to the end of March.

Bucket toilets are nothing more than plain buckets used to collect human waste from residences that do not have flushing toilets. The …

David Vargas

ASUNCION, Feb 6 2008 (IPS) – As health authorities in Paraguay brace themselves to face another possible outbreak of dengue fever, critics are becoming more outspoken about the limited effectiveness of campaigns to prevent the disease, which affected over 28,000 people and caused 17 deaths in 2007.

Credit:

Concern is rising with the mounting numbers of cases of suspected dengue, which in the space of a week multiplied from 40 to over 200.

However, so far the Health Ministry has officially confirmed only two dengue cases, while further results are awaited for another 15 blood samples which preliminary laboratory tests …

Alicia Fraerman

MADRID, Apr 15 2008 (IPS) – Failure to inform the authorities and take safety measures after a radioactive leak at a Spanish nuclear plant nearly five months ago has alarmed people in nearby towns, environmentalists and civil society organisations.
One of Spain s eight nuclear power plants at Ascó, a village in the northeastern region of Catalonia, leaked radioactivity on Nov. 29, 2007, but those responsible failed to inform nearby residents, thus preventing them from taking remedial action to protect themselves.

The Spanish branch of environmental watchdog Greenpeace International, which on Apr. 5 was the first to report publicly that the leak had taken place, said on Tuesday that among the protective measures that had been omitted because of the pla…

Julio Godoy* – Tierramérica

BONN, May 29 2008 (IPS) – The medicinal or nutritional properties of many plants can give rise to enormous economic benefits, which put patents for naturally existing plants at the centre of an ethical, commercial and legal debate.

A Buddhist monk and traditional healer in Thailand. Credit: Photo Stock

One example is the Hoodia gordonii bush, which grows in arid regions with high saline soils, such as the Kalahari Desert in Southern Africa. For centuries, indigenous peoples of Botswana, Nami…

Miriam Mannak

ACCRA, Sep 5 2008 (IPS) – The ecological impact of natural resource exploitation on the lives of the poor in Africa and other regions is not being addressed sufficiently in aid effectiveness and development discussions, aid experts say.
Africa is known as one of the richest parts of the world when it comes to natural resources, yet it is also the poorest region despite the natural wealth and the aid flow, said Charles Mutasa, executive director of the African Forum and Network on Debt and Development (AFRODAD) a Zimbabwe-based NGO working on Africa s debt problem.

Mutasa was participating in a discussion at the Third High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness (HLF3), which took place in the Ghanaian capital of Accra from September 2-4.

The ecologica…

Daniela Estrada

SANTIAGO, Oct 30 2008 (IPS) – The Institute of Nutrition and Food Technology (INTA) at the University of Chile has detected genetically modified organisms in four samples of conventional maize grown near fields where transgenic maize seeds are being produced for export.
These results are extremely serious. The question is, who will take responsibility? Who will pay for this contamination? María Isabel Manzur of the non-governmental Sustainable Societies Foundation (FSS), which along with the Sustainable Chile Programme contracted INTA to analyse 30 maize samples, told IPS.

The maize contaminated with genetically modified (GM) organisms is sold in Chile as corn on the cob, seeds and animal feed.

GM crops are created in laboratories by insertin…