Economy Aug 06 Russia Wheat Export Ban Pushes Prices Near 2-Year High Wheat prices retreated slightly but held near a two-year high Friday in reaction to a Russian announcement banning grain exports through the end of the year due to severe drought and wildfires. "We need to prevent a rise in domestic…
World Aug 04 Slide Show: Pakistan Floodwaters Spread as Death Toll Grows Floodwaters spread Wednesday into Pakistan’s populous Punjab province, heightening a humanitarian crisis that has killed more than 1,500 people and left 3.2 million needing food aid and assistance. Heavy monsoon rains set off the worst flooding the nation has seen…
Health Jul 29 Keeping Disease at Bay in the Camps of Port-au-Prince The tent camps of Port-au-Prince have all the makings of disease breeding grounds; thousands of people living in temporary shelters, in very close contact, completely reliant on aid for clean water and sanitation services. But as the disaster response from…
Health Jul 23 Promising Science Highlights From 2010 AIDS Conference AIDS Conference in Vienna; Photo by Steve Forrest/International AIDS Society VIENNA, Austria | This year's International AIDS Conference, drawing to a close Friday, produced among other things a high-profile scientific breakthrough, endless policy discussions and plenty of new…
Health Jul 22 UNAIDS: AIDS Funding Faltering at Critical Moment VIENNA, Austria | Global AIDS leaders continue to call for sustaining and increasing HIV/AIDS funding in the face of the global economic crisis at the International AIDS Conference this week. "For the first time we are seeing funding going down,"…
Health Jul 21 Drug Use Accelerating HIV Epidemic in Eastern Europe VIENNA, Austria | Europe now has the fastest growing HIV epidemic in the world, due in large part to intravenous drug use, the World Health Organization told the International AIDS Conference in Vienna Wednesday. The epidemic is disproportionately affecting Eastern…
Health Jul 20 Study Shows Gel Holds Promise for Reducing HIV Risk VIENNA, Austria | In a big step forward for the field of HIV prevention, a new study shows for the first time a microbicide gel provided significant protection for women from HIV infection. Use of a vaginal gel containing the…
Health Jul 15 Port-au-Prince Maternity Clinics Pushed to Limit It's nearly dusk in Port-au-Prince on a recent sweltering summer evening, and four women at the Health Center of Croix des Bouquets are in the early stages of labor. They are all expected to give birth by morning and will…
Politics Jul 14 Haiti Aims to Move Residents Out of Tents, Back Into Habitable Homes With 1.5 million Haitians still living in tent camps, international organizations and the government are struggling to find legally available land for new settlements and ways to decongest the existing camps. The government is now advising people who can return…
Health Jul 14 Life in Haiti’s Tent Cities More than 1,300 tent camps are housing an estimated 1.5 million people in Haiti displaced by a powerful earthquake in January. Some camps are well serviced by a variety of NGOs, but other more informal camps have little support.