POLITICS-US: Vets Mull Wins and Losses in Benefits Fight
By Aaron Glantz*
SAN FRANCISCO - You could hear the joy in Patrick Campbell's voice as he reflected on U.S. President George W. Bush's signing Monday of a new GI Bill of Rights for veterans returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan.
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G8: 'Investment In Health Is Effective Aid'
Interview with Jon Lidén of the Global Fund To Fight AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis
GENEVA - Japan wants next week's summit of seven major western industrial nations and Russia (G8) to urge the international community to push towards combating HIV/AIDS. It sees this as a critical objective of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that are meant to be achieved by 2015.
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MIDEAST: Sewage in Water Threatens Gazans
By Mel Frykberg
GAZA CITY - Gaza is being forced to pump 77 tonnes of untreated or partially treated sewage out to sea daily due to the Israeli blockade of the coastal territory. The fear is that some of this is creeping back into drinking water.
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NORWAY: Farmed Salmon In Hot Water
By Tarjei Kidd Olsen
OSLO - Environmental damage, diseases or workers rights abuses are common at fish farms in Chile and Canada operated by the world's largest salmon company, according to activists.
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HEALTH-SOUTH AFRICA: Refugees Denied Access to Health Care
By Kristin Palitza
DURBAN - Refugees and migrants do not have adequate access to health care services in South Africa, aid organisations and NGOs say. This is particularly detrimental for those who are HIV-positive and in need of continuous antiretroviral (ARV) medication: interrupted treatment can mean illness, development of drug-resistance and ultimately death.
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CHINA: ‘Within a Generation Beijing Will Cease to Exist’
By Antoaneta Bezlova
BEIJING - Few in the Chinese capital are aware of the price their city would pay for staging the world’s first ‘green Olympics’ in August. The fabulous capital of Chinese emperors and the epitome of modern China’s ambitions is being driven to extinction by its chronic lack of water. And the Olympic games are expediting the city’s slow demise, according to experts.
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HEALTH-SOUTH AFRICA: Bleak Future For the Country's Water
Analysis by Steven Lang
GRAHAMSTOWN - Earlier this month, a private pilot reported to a Johannesburg radio station that while flying over the Kruger National Park, in the far eastern reaches of the country, he had spotted the carcasses of several large crocodiles floating in the Olifants River. This was unusual because the crocodiles within the country's largest game reserve are protected from hunting.
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VIETNAM: Mekong Delta Farmers on Bird Flu Alert
By Tran Dinh Thanh Lam*
CAN THO, Vietnam - The bustling city of Can Tho is the capital of southern Vietnam’s fertile Mekong Delta and one of the country’s two main rice baskets. Good food in abundance makes it an ideal place to raise ducks and chickens, but this also means it is also one of the most high-risk areas in the country for bird flu.
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HEALTH-PORTUGAL: Latin American Doctors Fill the Breach
By Mario de Queiroz
LISBON - Portugal is trying to fill the vacuum left by the departure of many of the 2,000 Spanish doctors who have been contributing to the normal functioning of hospitals and clinics in the interior of the country, with Argentine, Cuban and Uruguayan doctors.
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HEALTH-MALAWI: Water Woes in Model Hospital
By Pilirani Semu-Banda
LILONGWE - Gladys Mawera's face is contorted with pain -– both she and her newborn baby survived a complicated birth three days ago -- but she has not been able to take the painkillers and antibiotics prescribed to her by the medical personnel at the Chiradzulu District Hospital in southern Malawi. The hospital has been without water for five days.
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