A pregnant woman in Kenya’s North Eastern Province with one of her children. Overpopulation in the area contributes to poor maternal health. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS
NAIROBI, Kenya, Apr 27 2020 (IPS) – Sexual and reproductive health and pandemics might seem to be unrelated topics, but large and dense populations are drivers of the high velocity transmission of COVID-19, and there are lessons to be learned for the future.
Gains made in women’s sexual reproductive health and rights just took several steps backward in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Access to contraceptives has been interrupted, resulting in an increase in unintended pregnancies. With sch…
A man’s legs chained in a Christian rehabilitation center in Ibadan City, Oyo State, Nigeria, Ibadan City, Oyo State, Nigeria, September 2019. Women and men are chained and tied for perceived or actual mental health condition or intellectual disability. © 2019 Robin Hammond for Human Rights Watch.
NEW YORK, Apr 7 2020 (IPS) – When Akanni’s mother died in early 2018, she stopped eating for three weeks. Her mood became unpredictable; she was often shouting or sulking angrily. Medicine from a local pharmacist didn’t help. At a loss for what to do to handle the trauma, Akanni’s father took her to a church in Abeokuta, Ogun state, in Nigeria. And then he left her the…
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…
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Jul 2 2020 (IPS) – The Covid-19 crisis has had several unexpected effects, including renewed attention to food security concerns. Earlier understandings of food security in terms of production self-sufficiency have given way to importing supplies since late 20th century promotion of trade liberalization.
Jomo Kwame Sundaram
Transnational food business
Disruption of transnational food supply chains and the devastation of many vulnerable livelihoods by policy responses to the Covid-19 pandemic have revived interest in earlier understandings of food self-sufficiency. But, even if successful, winding back policy will not address more recently recogni…
SINGAPORE, Jun 9 2020 – Politics have exacerbated the already severe pains that the raging COVID Pandemic have been inflicting on the global population. The spread of Coronavirus coincided with three major developments in the global arena. First was the end of what Charles Krauthammer, the American neo-conservative guru had called, as the title of his book on that subject suggested, America’s “Unipolar Moment”. This was the period, since the implosion of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, when the United states was the only pre-dominant superpower that ruled the roost in the global arena. Though China was rising in the meantime, politically, economically and militarily, it was still coy about it, conforming to the Deng Xia0ping counsel to “hide its capabilities and bide its ti…
To Enrique González Rojo (1928-2021), friend, comrade in many struggles, admirable poet, and Marxist thinker
MEXICO CITY, Mar 26 2021 (IPS) – A compilation of testimonies collected by Blanca Velázquez Díaz and published by the Ebert Foundation (available at: ) offers an account of the harsh reality by which some workers of the maquila industry in the Mexican state of Morelos have gone through over these last twelve months. Their words reflect, undoubtedly, similar experiences of millions of workers in different parts of the country.
Saul Escobar Toledo
The author explains the interviews were conducted by phone in mid-2020; the workers´ ages range from 20 to 40 years; …
2.2 billion young people below the age of 25 don’t have internet connections at home, and girls are more likely to lack access.
Young girls in Guinea. Credit: Karl Grobl/EDC
NEW YORK, Oct 11 2021 (IPS) – This year’s International Day of the Girl theme, , celebrates the potential of digital technologies while calling for the inclusion of all girls in accessing technology. The digital revolution will not be realized if girls without access to digital solutions are left behind. For years, advocates of technology for development have been repeating the mantra that technology is not a panacea. Yet in racing to connect, catch up, and create greater access, we ig…
The Republic of Congo received just over 300,000 doses of the COVID vaccines through the COVAX Facility in August 2021. The international COVAX initiative aimed at guaranteeing global access to the vaccines, recently announced that it was being forced to slash planned deliveries to Africa, by around 150 million doses this year. The scheme is now expected to deliver 470 million doses through the end of December. These will be enough to protect just 17 per cent of the continent, far below the 40 per cent target, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Credit: UNICEF/Aimable Twiringiyima
MANOA, Hawaii / TAIPEI, Taiwan, Dec 6 2021 (IPS) – Many countries around the …
The employment outlook for women in Latin America continues to face obstacles before it can reach pre-COVID-19 levels. But a sustainable and inclusive recovery will require measures to close the gender gaps that already affected employment of women in the region before the pandemic. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS
LIMA, Mar 3 2022 (IPS) – The COVID-19 pandemic did not hit everyone equal…
Credit: Office of New York City Mayor
NEW YORK, May 22 2022 (IPS) – A fifth wave of a new Covid 19 variant BA.2, followed by a surge in infections, is threatening to undermine the safety of New York city (NYC) which was gradually returning to normal after a prolonged pandemic shutdown. As a result, the City went on “high Covid alert.”
But NYC Mayor Eric Adams has assured New Yorkers he will not bring back mask and vaccine mandates in work places, shopping malls, restaurants and Broadway theaters. Instead, he said he will focus on anti-virus treatment and home-testing.
Briefing reporters at a press conference, he said “I think the reason we a…