Helen Clark
HANOI, Nov 11 2009 (IPS) – Vietnam will be one of five nations most affected by climate change. Worst-case scenarios see large parts of the low-lying and flood-prone Mekong Delta area, which produces much of the nation s rice crop, flooded.
A one-metre rise in sea level, predicted by 2100 will affect 10 percent of Vietnam s population (which now stands at 86 million) and 10 percent of GDP lost.
The government could not have been more right when it released these scenarios in August. Many international organisations concur.
As millions are displaced and the potential for vector-borne diseases such as malaria and dengue to spread grows, health and human rights have become concerns closely related to climate change.
The links between health, h…
UXBRIDGE, Canada, Nov 11 2010 (IPS) – One of the world s biggest health threats is also one of the least recognised more than 100 million people who literally breathe and eat toxic pollutants like lead, mercury, chromium every day, according to the first-ever detailed assessment.
Kids playing in contaminated tannery scraps. Credit: Courtesy of the Blacksmith Institute
By contrast, global attention and billions of dollars are focused on AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, which affect comparable nu…
Credit: Bigstock
CAPE TOWN, South Africa, May 31 2020 (IPS) – Tobacco use kills more than people each year. Most adult smokers start smoking before the . This implies that if one can get through adolescence without , the likelihood of being a smoker in adulthood is greatly reduced.
Preventing young people from becoming addicted to tobacco and related products is therefore key to a smoke-free future.
With the advent of novel tobacco products and the tobacco industry falsely marketing them as less harmful than their combustible counter…