Credit: United Nations

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 24 2020 (IPS) – When US President Donald Trump repeatedly characterized the fast-spreading COVID-19 as a “Chinese virus” last week, it prompted some white supremacists to resurrect an age old ethnic slur against Chinese and East Asians: the “Yellow Peril” which, in a bygone era, was touted as a xenophobic threat to the Western world.

But Tendayi Achiume, UN Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Racism, Racial Discrimination and Xenophobia, is highly critical of the racist interpretation to a disease which has claimed over 16,500 deaths worldwide and accounted for more than 378,000 infections, with the epice…

The acute shortage of qualified mental health specialists in West Africa is a major obstacle to tackling mental health issues in the region. Credit Credit: Unsplash /Melanie Wasser

NAIROBI, Jul 24 2024 (IPS) – Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, people in the African region were living with mental health conditions. A large proportion of mental dis…