Caribbean Moves to Protect Rights of HIV-Positive Workers

Thirty years into the HIV and AIDS epidemic, Caribbean countries are slowly putting necessary legislation in place to ensure the rights of workers despite their HIV/AIDS and chronic disease status.

Family Planning Essential for Development

Improving family planning to avoid unwanted pregnancies in developing countries, as well as assuring girls’ access to education, and women’s participation in the economy, are essential components of a sound development policy, according to Western experts and African activists.

Death Stalks Pregnant Women in East Myanmar

From a wooden, weather-beaten building on the edge of this border town, Mahn Mahn charts dangerous missions deep Myanmar (also Burma) for the 2,000-odd health workers under his wing.

Poverty Drives Child Labour

In an informal settlement of 10,000 people on the outskirts of Papua New Guinea’s capital, Port Moresby, Tembari Children’s Care – a new grassroots initiative – is providing protection, food and education to orphans and abandoned children who would otherwise join the high numbers of child labourers in this Melanesian country.

Archaic Laws Stymie HIV/AIDS Work in Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka has long enjoyed a low 0.1 percent HIV prevalence but, as the number of fresh infections rises steadily, experts are calling for a change in the country's archaic laws that make sex work illegal and criminalises homosexual activity. 

Women’s Inequality Linked to Soaring Population

The world’s population now stands at about seven billion, and by 2050, this figure will hit a whopping nine billion.

Brazil Launches Campaign to Decriminalise Drug Use

A host of academic, legal, health, political and social figures are joining together to back a campaign to decriminalise drug use in Brazil, as tens of thousands of consumers uninvolved in the drug trade are currently jailed.

Birth Control – Roping in Pakistan’s Men

“No scalpel, no stitch and no rest needed,” guarantees Dr. Ghulam Shabbir Sudhayao, referring to the surgical procedure called vasectomy - the least popular method of birth control around the world, including Pakistan.

International Conference Sheds Light on U.S. AIDS Crisis

Thirty-one years after the start of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the United States, the country’s infection rates have not gone down in a decade, warned advocates speaking here on Tuesday ahead of a major international conference.

U.N. Showcases South-South Successes

Knowledge-sharing has become a cornerstone of successful cooperation among developing countries, in areas ranging from agriculture to health and renewable energies.

U.S. Urged to Increase Bomb-Clearing Aid for Laos

Disarmament activists and former U.S. ambassadors are urging Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to increase U.S. aid to Laos to clear millions of tonnes of unexploded ordinance (UXO) left by U.S. bombers on its territory during the Indochina War during her brief visit to the country Wednesday.

Taliban Thwarts Global Polio Eradication

By ordering a ban on polio immunisation, in its strongholds along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, the Taliban is holding up an ambitious global programme to rid the world of  the crippling childhood disease, say World Health Organisation (WHO) doctors.

South Sudan’s Women Await Independence From Poverty

One year after the formation of South Sudan, the country’s women say that independence has not resulted in the positive political, economic and social changes that they had hoped for.

South Africa’s National Health Insurance Sites Underfunded

Experts say that underfunded pilot universal healthcare sites to be set up by South Africa as part of its proposed national health insurance may be doomed to fail as debate rages about how the move to more equitable healthcare will be funded.