STOCKHOLM / ROME, Feb 11 2019 (IPS) – The Mediterranean Sea is currently a sea of death. On the 20th of June every year, i.e. The World Refugee Day, an organization called UNITED for Intercultural Action publishes a “List of Deaths”, summarising information on where, when and under which circumstances a named individual has died due to the “fatal policies of fortress Europa”. The data are collected through information received from 550 network organisations in 48 countries and from local experts, journalists and researchers in the field of migration. The list issued in 2018 accounted for 27 000 deaths by drowning since 1993, often hundreds at a time when large emb…
Juan Pablo Segura is Co-founder of Babyscripts, the leading virtual care platform for managing obstetrics.
WASHINGTON DC, Jun 7 2019 (IPS) – The maternal mortality rate in the United States is the highest of any developed country – and the rate is rising. The .
Few to none of these maternal deaths are due to medical mismanagement. Instead, problems of access, care coordination, and inequities in health care resources and social services are at the heart of maternal death rates.
Minority women, particularly those facing socioeconomic challenges, are the primary victims behind these statistics — .
Heavy hitters like , , , and others have highlight…
WALLINGFORD, CT, US, Sep 24 2019 (IPS) – Last year, the United States introduced a new asbestos rule that was received both positively and negatively and Canada banned the mineral altogether. Countries like the U.K. and Australia continue to struggle with the health implications of historic asbestos use, despite both having bans for several years. In contrast, nations like Russia and Vietnam continue to manufacture and use the mineral frequently.
Asbestos is a substance that was used throughout history as an additive in many products to provide heat and fire resistance. It fell out of favor around the world starting in the 1970s when US court documents showed that co…
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Morales balance act was performed between an urban, social elite, a hostile U.S. government, suspicious neighbouring countries, big landowners, industrialists, the Army, coca growers, corrupt, political allies, alleged mistresses, regional leaders, environmentalists and not the least dissatisfaction amidst loyal supporters among poor and indigenous communities, suffering inevitable frustrations over his adminstration´s inability to provide everything they hoped for.
Nevertheless, a galloping inflation was checked under Morales´s regime. Foreign currency reserves grew steadily, while millions were spent on subsidies and infrastructure. Contrary to many other Latin American populists, Morales is also a pragmatist who instead of outright nationalizing companies and inst…
Colorised scanning electron micrograph of MERS virus particles (yellow) both budding and attached to the surface of infected VERO E6 cells (blue). Credit: NIAID
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 31 2020 (IPS) – Weeks into widespread panic about the “Coronavirus” that has so far in China, the World Health Organisation (WHO) on Thursday declared it a public health emergency. As of Friday, the disease had spread to all the regions in Mainland China, with more than 7,500 cases in the country alone, .
In a statement, WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said owing to the large number of cases, the pace at which it is spreading, and for not knowing what this dam…
Photojournalists stage a demonstration demanding the safe return of Shafiqul Islam Kajol, in front of the National Museum in Dhaka, on March 18, 2020. PHOTO: COLLECTED
Mar 23 2020 – A barrage of fireworks light up the smoggy skies of Dhaka and I feel as if I m in the opening scenes of a dystopian film.
There s anxiety and despair all around about what s to come—those who have been following the developments in other parts of the world know there s no way to avoid the impending crisis in our healthcare system as it scrambles, without any preparation, to tackle what may soon become a tsunami of patients showcasing symptoms of the coronavirus. The streets are unc…
SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, May 5 2020 (IPS) – Like much of the West, Argentina did not take many early precautionary actions after the Covid-19 epidemic was confirmed in January, but became the first Latin American country to act decisively with a 12 March public health emergency declaration.
The presidential decree came a day after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a global pandemic, just over a week after the first case was detected in the republic on 3 March.
Anis Chowdhury
Lockdown to ‘flatten the curve’
With neither vaccine nor cure available, Argentina decided on a lockdown to buy time to ‘flatten the curve’ by slowing its rapid …
A dated photo of a mother and her child from West Point, a low-income neighbourhood of Monrovia, Liberia. Advocates worry that there will be numerous kinds of impact on women’s access to sexual and reproductive health facilities around the world as countries and cities are under lockdown under the COVID-19 pandemic. Credit: Travis Lupick/IPS
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 7 2020 (IPS) – A little over half of women across the globe are able to freely make choices about their sexual and reproductive health, according to a latest report based on data from 57 countries.
However, as much of the world has gone into lockdown because of the coronavirus pandemic, with c…
IPBES Expert Guest Article by Professors Josef Settele, Sandra Díaz and Eduardo Brondizio1 and Dr. Peter Daszak2 on 27 April 2020
Apr 27 2020 (IPS) – There is a single species that is responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic us. As with the climate and biodiversity crises, recent pandemics are a direct consequence of human activity – particularly our global financial and economic systems, based on a limited paradigm that prizes economic growth at any cost. We have a small window of opportunity, in overcoming the challenges of the current crisis, to avoid sowing the seeds of future ones.
Josef Settele
Diseases like COVID-19 are caused by microorganisms tha…
Systemic racism in agriculture is painfully obvious. Why has it taken a new Civil Rights movement to clearly expose the sordid roots and present-day inequalities in food and farming?
Credit: Heifer International
LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas, USA, Jun 22 2020 (IPS) – There has been far less social progress in the United States in the last 155 years than many people would like to believe. In 2020, racism still seeps its way into every aspect of life; from unconscious bias and micro-aggressions in everyday interactions to domestic and international policy and enforcement.
As an organization with 76 years of , we have a responsibility to use our experienc…