Anne-Kathrin Keller
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 3 2007 (IPS) – The scene within and outside the United Nations last week was strikingly dissimilar: while more than 140 world leaders were arriving in New York to wine, dine and address the General Assembly, a group of activists was demonstrating outside the U.N. compound for a hunger-free world.
The message conveyed by the activists was clear: the United Nations is fighting a losing battle to fulfill its pledge to halve the number of undernourished people.
According to the U.N. s Food and Agriculture Organisation, the number of hungry people worldwide has increased from 800 million in 2000 to 854 million this year. About 35,000 people die of hunger every day.
World leaders shouldn t just put the issue of hunger on the …
Fabio Scarpello
DENPASAR, Indonesia, Aug 24 2009 (IPS) – Women s rights groups who are campaigning for widening the scope of abortion in Indonesia are calling for an amendment to a colonial era law that puts poor women at risk.
Tini Hadad (right): We want the health law to be updated Credit:
Tini Hadad, secretary general of the Association for Women s Health, says Indonesia has one of the world s highest rates of deaths from unsafe abortions. This is because the current laws are totally inadequate, she told IPS.
The Association f…
Badylon K. Bakiman
KIKWIT, DR Congo, Mar 8 2012 (IPS) – The outlook for people living with disabilities in the Democratic Republic of Congo remains bleak, despite a variety of efforts to improve their lot and bring them in from the margins of society.
There are roughly 9.1 million people with disabilities in Congo, 11 percent of the total population of 60 million, said Patrick Pindu, coordinator of the National Federation of Associations of People Living with a Disability in Congo (FENAPHACO).
Pindu, who was speaking on the occasion of the first Day of Sharing and Solidarity , organised in Kikwit, in southwestern DRC in February, said, Amongst people with disabilities, 90 percent are illiterate, 93 percent are jobless and 96 percent live in an unhealthy and inhumane …
“Area of sacrifice” – a sign put up by local residents in Bouwer, Argentina to protest the garbage and toxic waste dumped in their town. Credit: Courtesy of Bouwer Sin Basura
BOUWER, Argentina , Dec 16 2013 (IPS) – Towns traditionally celebrate their most characteristic aspect. So the town of Bouwer in central Argentina decided to “celebrate” garbage.
But the “first provincial festival of pollution and against discrimination” is not a reason for pride, but a mechanism of resistance by a town that wants to stop being “an area of environmental sacrifice” in the central province of Córdoba.
In the festival, to be held Feb. 22 in this working…
Air and chemical pollution are growing rapidly in the developing world with dire consequences for health, says Richard Fuller, president of the Pure Earth/Blacksmith Institute. Credit: Bigstock
UXBRIDGE, Canada, Jun 13 2014 (IPS) – Pollution, not disease, is the biggest killer in the developing world, taking the lives of more than 8.4 million people each year, a new analysis shows. That’s almost three times the deaths caused by malaria and fourteen times those caused by HIV/AIDs. However, pollution receives a fraction of the interest from the global community.
“Toxic sites along with air and water pollution impose a tremendous burden on the health systems of developing countr…
Peddlers in Mazar-e-Sharif, Balkh province, North Afghanistan. Concern is being expressed in Afghanistan about the country’s future after Western disengagement. Credit: Giuliano Battiston/IPS
KABUL, Dec 11 2014 (IPS) – The U.S./NATO International Security Assistance Force Joint Command lowered its flag for the last time in Afghanistan on Dec. 8, after 13 years. The ISAF mission officially ends on Dec. 31, and will be replaced on Jan. 1, 2015 by “Resolute Support”, a new, narrow-mandate mission to train, advise and assist the Afghan National Security Forces.
However, despite U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s …
IPS correspondent Manipadma Jena interviews the Executive Director of United Nations Environment ERIK SOLHEIM ahead of the Dec. 4-6 3rd UN Environment Assembly in Nairobi, where 193 member states will discuss and make global commitments to environmental protection.
Erik Solheim participates in the largest beach clean-up in history at Versova Beach Clean-Up in Mumbai, India, in October 2016. Photo courtesy of UNEP
NAIROBI/NEW DELHI, Dec 1 2017 (IPS) – “Political resolve is the key for succeeding in our fight agains…
Antoinette Sayeh is deputy managing director of the IMF, and Ralph Chami is assistant director of the IMF’s Institute for Capacity Development.
Credit: URDEE IMAGE/ZUMA WIRE/ALAMY LIVE NEWS
Jun 4 2020 (IPS) – The COVID-19 pandemic is crippling the economies of rich and poor countries alike. Yet for many low-income and fragile states, the economic shock will be magnified by the loss of remittances—money sent home by migrant and guest workers employed in foreign countries.
Remittance flows into low-income and fragile states represent a lifeline that supports households as well as provides much-needed tax revenue. As of 2018, remittance flows to these countri…