HORIZON INTERNATIONAL SOLUTIONS SITE

"This shouldn't have to exist," Barrientos told IPS at the Los Piletones soup kitchen, which she runs. "What there should be is decent work, so that every man and woman could go out and earn a living. But until that is possible, we'll have to keep this going."

In a bid to improve the health and well-being of millions of people worldwide, the United Nations on 21 June 2011 launched a major push to accelerate progress towards the goal of halving, by 2015, the proportion of the population without access to basic sanitation.

A multi-disciplinary team at Loughborough University led by Professor M.Sohail has won a prestigious grant of approximately £250,000 in an international competition to “re-invent the toilet” organized by The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The world has seen seven global cholera outbreaks since 1817, and the current one seems to have come to stay. Rising temperatures and a stubbornly persistent, toxic bacteria strain appear to have given the disease the upper hand.