Toye Olori
LAGOS, Oct 30 2006 (IPS) – It s certainly a logical suggestion: in an effort to make cocoa-producing countries in Africa less dependent on consumers abroad, why not increase domestic consumption of cocoa products?
While Africa produces more than 75 per cent of the world s cocoa, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, the continent consumes only about two percent of this produce. The remainder goes to Europe and the United States which, some claim, have too big a say over cocoa prices as a result prices that are set without much consideration for production costs.
A glut of cocoa has also played a part in forcing down prices fetched by the commodity on the international market. In addition, European cocoa buyers have tied lower pr…
Julio Godoy
PARIS, Nov 30 2006 (IPS) – Immigrant women are becoming some of the main victims of new HIV transmissions in several European countries, especially in France, according to official figures.
The French Institute for Health Surveillance (InVS, after its French name) said in a report published this week that 6,700 people were diagnosed with HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) in France last year. This included a substantial number of women from sub-Saharan countries.
HIV is a retrovirus that causes the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS).
According to the report by InVS, 57 percent of the new HIV cases are women, and among those, 48 percent are immigrants from sub-Saharan countries.
The paper says that among men, roughly 20 percent of HI…
Isabel Chimangeni
LUSAKA, Jan 17 2007 (IPS) – Being pregnant in Africa is like having an unknown disease, says Zambian mother Alice Tembo, referring to many of her compatriots lack of basic knowledge about pregnancy and childbirth.
She has recently given birth without any complications, which is exceptional in a country where the maternal mortality ratio is 728 per 100,000 live births.
However, Zambia s maternal death rate is still lower that the rate for the whole of the sub-Saharan African region, which stood at a shocking 920 per 100,000 live births in 2000 according to the United Nations Statistics Division.
Internationally, sub-Saharan Africa has by far the highest ratio of maternal deaths. It is more than double the rate for the world as a whole, which i…
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Sota Furuhashi โปรดิวเซอร์อนิเมะ Solo Leveling เผยในวิดีโอพิเศษว่า ซีซั่น 2 จะตอบสนองความต้องการของแฟน ๆ หลายคนที่อยากเห็นการเล่าเรื่องของตัวละครอื่น ๆ นอกเหนือจาก Songjinwoo ตัวเอกของเรื่อง
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YouTube ช่อง Aniplex ปล่อยวิดีโอ ANIPLEX After Hours ตอนแรกที่มี Sally Amaki นักพากย์เสียงและคุณ Furuhas…
Mario de Queiroz
LISBON, Feb 8 2007 (IPS) – Just when those in favour of legalising abortion in Portugal were faltering in the polls, a hair-raising campaign against voluntary termination of pregnancy could backfire against the anti-abortion cause, instead of winning over more supporters.
One day, when I was happily curled up in the womb, I noticed something very strange that I couldn t explain, something that made me shudder. I felt my life was being taken away from me. A knife took me by surprise as I was playing happily, when all I wanted to do was to be born so that I could love you. Mummy, how could you possibly kill me?
This paragraph is part of a leaflet found in the backpacks of toddlers at the O Aquário e a Nuvem preschool centre in the port city of Setúb…
Marcela Valente*
BUENOS AIRES, Mar 19 2007 (IPS) – Climate change, which has resulted, for example, in heavier and more persistent rains in South America, is forcing countries to take more proactive measures to prevent the spread of diseases like dengue fever.
Paraguay has been struck by an epidemic of the more dangerous variant, dengue haemorrhagic fever.
Global warming increases the risk of future epidemics, entomologist Anthony Erico Guimaraes, a researcher at the Oswaldo Cruz Institute, Brazil #39s leading centre for the study of tropical diseases and the development of medicines to combat them, told IPS.
The rise in global temperatures indirectly influences the spread of dengue by modifying rainfall frequency, he explained.
The head of Bolivia #3…
David Vargas
ASUNCIÓN, Apr 20 2007 (IPS) – The corridors in Paraguay s Hospital de Clínicas are crammed with dozens of patients with symptoms of dengue waiting for treatment, but in the nurses station they are having a party. Mirian López, a registered nurse with several years experience in intensive care, has just found out that she has a job waiting for her in Italy.
López will soon join the ranks of the nearly 400 Paraguayan nurses who have emigrated to Italy since 2000 to work in public and private hospitals.
They represent over 10 percent of the nursing work force in this South American country of six million, where the Public Health Ministry budget covers a total of only 3,500 posts for nurses, auxiliary nurses and technicians.
Of these, only 1,567 p…
Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON, May 30 2007 (IPS) – U.S. President George W. Bush Wednesday called for Congress to double spending on his global AIDS programme to 30 billion dollars from fiscal 2009 through 2013.
US Global AIDS Coordinator Mark Dybul at St. Bridget s Preschool in Tonota, Botswana. Credit: US State Department
In a brief appearance in the White House Rose Garden, Bush said his four-year-old President s Emergency Programme for AIDS Relief (PEPF…