Month: May 2015

Four countries have blocked a bid to add chrysotile asbestos to a list of dangerous substances subject to export restrictions during a UN meeting in Geneva that concluded early Saturday, participants said. Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Zimbabwe opposed listing the mineral also known as white asbestos, which health experts say causes cancer, on the Rotterdam Convention list, according to groups attending the Geneva meeting. The 1998 Rotterdam Convention restricts trade in chemicals by obliging exporters to ensure that destination countries have been fully informed about the risks involved and have given an explicit green light for imports. "The failure to list chrysotile asbestos means millions of exposed workers will stay ignorant of its deadly dangers," said Brian Kohler, head of health, security and sustainable development for the IndustriALL Global Union.

Go to Source

By Magdalena Mis LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Under the shade of a wooden shack in the western Chadian town of Bagasola, heavily pregnant Zara Gayi sells mangoes and vegetables, hoping to earn enough money to feed her four children. "My husband used to ride boats to Nigeria. In the past, he could earn 100,000 Naira ($500) a month," she told the United Nations children's agency UNICEF. Disruptions to trade and an influx of refugees fleeing Boko Haram attacks in Nigeria have made life more difficult for people already struggling with a poor harvest in western Chad.

Go to Source

By Magdalena Mis LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – South Sudan has defended a law limiting the number of foreign aid workers that can work in the country despite concerns from relief groups that the move could have "potentially catastrophic effects" for the millions of people who need help. The law, which is awaiting President Salva Kiir's signature after being passed on Tuesday, requires non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to limit foreign employees, including those at senior level, to one fifth of their staff in the country. For NGOs that come to South Sudan there must be provisions … for local citizens," he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone from South Sudan on Friday. "If the bill is implemented in a way that creates a more regressive environment, then this will have potentially catastrophic effects for the large amounts of the South Sudanese population that rely on NGOs to provide basic services and life saving aid," South Sudan NGO Forum said in a statement.

Go to Source

RABAT, Morocco (AP) — Moroccan King Mohammed VI has ordered that laws restricting abortion be loosened, allowing it in the case of rape, incest, danger to the mother’s health or fetal malformation.
Go to Source

By Tom Miles GENEVA (Reuters) – An outbreak of meningitis with "unprecedented features" is spreading rapidly in Niger, with a tripling of cases in the past two weeks, hundreds of deaths so far this year and vaccines in short supply, the World Health Organization said on Friday. Vaccines against this form of the disease were in short supply and the outbreak was of particular concern because it was affecting more than one million people in densely populated urban areas including the capital, Niamey, its website said. Meningitis is common across the "meningitis belt" from Senegal to Ethiopia in the dry season between December and June. A 2009 outbreak caused more than 80,000 cases, and more than 200,000 cases, including 20,000 deaths, in 1996–1997, WHO said.

Go to Source

Amelia Freer may be the woman behind Sam Smith losing over 14 pounds in two weeks, but she has no desire to be lumped into the diet and weight …
Go to Source

“Losing weight needs much more than only diet and exercise,” says Dr. … diabetes, heart and kidney diseases, cancer, and other health problems.
Go to Source