Joyce Mulama

NAIROBI, Feb 21 2009 (IPS) – Six thousand tonnes of mercury enter the environment every year, posing a threat to human and animal health. Environment ministers meeting in Kenya have agreed to negotiate a treaty to reduce the supply and use of mercury worldwide.
The ministers from 140 countries, attending UNEP s Governing Council meeting in Nairobi Feb 16-20, reached consensus to begin negotiating a legally-binding instrument to control mercury pollution next year, leading to a treaty for signature in 2013.

Governments also agreed to increase the budget of UNEP, support renewable energy and energy efficiency, and underlined the importance of investment in a green economy as part of worldwide economic recovery.

Mercury is found in thermometers and h…

Kristin Palitza interviews MOTUMI RALEJOE, parliamentarian and member of Lesotho?s All Basotho Convention (ABC) party

MASERU, Mar 30 2009 (IPS) – The mountain kingdom of Lesotho faces a number of unique hurdles with regard to HIV and AIDS.

Mel Frykberg

RAMALLAH, Apr 30 2009 (IPS) – Israeli human rights organisation Yesh Din is taking the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF), the Israeli civil administration and a number of Israeli mining companies to court.
The rights group alleges they are illegally stripping Palestinian West Bank quarries of raw construction material for the benefit of the Israeli construction industry and the building of illegal Israeli settlements.

Yesh Din has lodged a petition against the commander of the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF), the Israeli civil administration and the mining companies with the Israeli high court.

The Israeli mining companies involved operate under the jurisdiction of the IDF and the civil administration, which issue the requisite mining permits.

In …

Ranjit Devraj

NEW DELHI, May 28 2009 (IPS) – For millions of Indian women the colloquial phrase going on the rag can literally mean that, or using just about anything available to stay dry during menstrual periods for lack of access to modern sanitary pads.

Teaching women in Muzaffarpur, Bihar state, to make sanitary napkins Credit: Goonj

At 50 rupees (one US dollar) per pack of five, sanitary napkins are an unaffordable item in the monthly budget of most families in India s impoverished rural areas and urban slum…

MEXICO CITY, Aug 1 2009 (IPS) – In the last two years a Mexico City hospital, kindergarten and municipal government office building have experimented with plant-covered rooftops. Today, workers and visitors are enjoying the benefits.

Employees and patients alike enjoy the green roof at the Belisario Domínguez Hospital. Credit: Verónica Díaz Favela/IPS

Eight months ago, the first nature roof w…

Daniela Estrada* – IPS/IFEJ

SANTIAGO, Aug 23 2009 (IPS) – A working-class neighbourhood on the outskirts of the capital, which stood united against the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet in the 1970s and 1980s and today is doing so against climate change, is launching the country s first ecobarrio project.

Women working in the Cuatro Álamos garden. Credit: Daniela Estrada/IPS

An ecobarrio (eco-neighbourhood) is a place where people voluntarily join forces to revamp huma…

Matthew Cardinale

ATLANTA, Georgia, Sep 30 2009 (IPS) – Environmental groups across the southeast United States, from Georgia to the Appalachia region, are stepping up their opposition to a controversial but widespread practice by coal companies of removing the tops of mountains with explosives.

Valley fill – Mountaintop removal coal mining in Martin County, Kentucky. Credit: Flashdark/wikimedia commons

Atlanta-based activist Darci Rodenhi r…

Sanjay Suri

LONDON, Oct 13 2009 (IPS) – Unsafe abortions kill about 70,000 women a year, says a report by the U.S.- based Guttmacher Institute. An additional five million women are treated annually for complications arising from unsafe abortion, adds the report, based on a global survey.
The institute, which seeks to advance sexual and reproductive health through research and policy education, notes that the number of abortions worldwide fell from 45.5 million in 1995 to 41.6 million in 2003. But that has still not reduced the number of deaths.

Unsafe abortions, including deaths from unsafe abortions, have not changed, even though overall rates of abortion are declining, Sharon Camp, president of the Guttmacher Institute, told IPS in an interview.

The explan…

Mantoe Phakathi

NHLANGANO, Swaziland, Nov 16 2009 (IPS) – Seven-year-old Ntombi* frowns after swallowing the tablets her grandmother has given her. The HIV-positive child has contracted multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB).

An HIV-positive mother sits next to her 18-month-old baby girl at Kangcamphalala in southern Swaziland. Both mother and bab…

Kyra Ryan

SANTA ANA, New Mexico, Dec 5 2009 (IPS) – Some 8,000 kilometres from the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Native American environmental experts from 66 tribes came together at a summit here this week to address the most pressing needs in their communities problems, all emphasised, that know no geographic boundaries.

New Mexico is home to 19 Pueblos, two Apache tribes, and part of the Navajo Nation. Credit: …