Inter Press Service

• This Planet Is Drying Up. And these Are the Consequences December 1, 2022
  Drought is one of the ‘most destructive’ natural disasters in terms of the loss of life, arising from impacts, such as wide-scale crop failure, wildfires and water stress. In other words, droughts are one of the “most feared natural phenomena in the world;” they devastate farmland, destroy livelihoods and cause untold suffering, as reported by […]
  Baher Kamal
• Egypt Racing to Supply Wind, Solar Energy to Greece, EU via Submarine Cables December 1, 2022
  As Europe braces for an unusual winter due to a global energy crisis, Greece is embarking on one of Europe’s most ambitious energy projects by connecting its electricity grid to Egypt’s. An underwater cable will transport 3,000 MW of electricity to power up to 450,000 households from northern Egypt to Attica in Greece. In October, […]
  Hisham Allam
• Illegal Immigration: A Mounting Global Crisis December 1, 2022
  Illegal immigration has evolved into a mounting crisis for a growing number of countries worldwide and governments appear to be at a loss on how to deal with the crisis. Migrant destination countries are facing record high numbers of unlawful border crossings and unauthorized arrivals at their shores, thousands of visa overstayers, and millions of […]
  Joseph Chamie
• COP 27: A Global COP-Out December 1, 2022
  Last year’s climate COP 26 in Glasgow, Scotland, was billed as the most important conference in the history of humanity. But it failed to deliver. If anything, that failure added urgency for global climate action at COP 27 in Egypt last month. Now that it this year’s COP is over, it is useful to reflect […]
  Robert Sandford
• Legal Recognition of East African Sign Languages Key Towards Inclusion November 30, 2022
  Since the onset of the Covid19 pandemic, at least two deaf people were shot and killed in Uganda by state law enforcement officers. Their ‘crime’ was being deaf and uneducated. Their inability to hear or comprehend Covid19 containment measures communicated in English led to their death. This is despite the United Nations Convention of the […]
  Timothy Egwelu
• Three Ways to End Gender-based Violence November 30, 2022
  How are the multiple shocks and crises the world is facing changing how we respond to gender-based violence? Almost three years after the COVID-19 pandemic triggered high levels of violence against women and girls, the recent Sexual Violence Research Initiative Forum 2022 (SVRI) shed some light on the best ways forward. Bringing together over 1,000 […]
  Jacqui Stevenson - Jessica Zimerman - Diego Antoni
• HIV Prevention: New Injection Could Boost the Fight, But Some Hurdles Remain November 30, 2022
  While the world has focused on the COVID pandemic for nearly three years, less and less attention is being paid to HIV. However, HIV is still a global problem. In 2021, according to the United Nations, 38.4 million people were living with HIV, over 650,000 died from AIDS-related illnesses, and 1.5 million became newly infected. […]
  External Source
• Africa’s Processing Industry Holds Promise for Broader Economic Growth November 30, 2022
  As a central pillar of African diets for thousands of years, millet has a prized position as one of the continent’s most important crops. And with the onset of climate change, millet offers valuable security to the continent’s smallholder farmers due to the crop’s tolerance for dry soils. Yet, the rise of an increasingly affluent […]
  Chakib Jenane
• Putting Nature on a Quantifiable, Ambitious Path to Recovery November 30, 2022
  Up to 1 million species are threatened with extinction – many within decades – this includes nearly one-third of reef-forming corals, shark relatives, and marine mammals. Half of agricultural expansion occurs at the expense of forests, and 85% of wetlands that were present at the beginning of the 18th century had been lost by the […]
  Joyce Chimbi
• Vaccine Refusal, Floods Impact Polio Drive in Pakistan November 29, 2022
  Vaccine refusal is impacting the eradication of polio in Pakistan. Pakistan has vaccinated about 35 million children during its door-to-door campaign, but about 500,000 remained unvaccinated due to refusal by their parents, Jawad Khan Polio officer in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, recorded in 2022 so far. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, one of Pakistan’s four provinces, has reported all 20 […]
  Ashfaq Yusufzai
• Can Asia and the Pacific Get on Track to Net Zero? November 29, 2022
  The recent climate talks in Egypt have left us with a sobering reality: The window for maintaining global warming to 1.5 degrees is closing fast and what is on the table currently is insufficient to avert some of the worst potential effects of climate change. The Nationally Determined Contribution targets of Asian and Pacific countries […]
  Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana
• UN Assessed Contributions Needed to Generate Core Funding for Climate Loss & Damage November 29, 2022
  For decades, there have been non-conclusive deliberations regarding how the international community could support poor and vulnerable countries in their efforts to cope with and recover from the havoc wreaked on their territory by the ill-effects of global warming such as severe droughts, floods, storms, or rising sea levels. At the COP27 climate summit, this […]
  Inge Kaul
• AGRA Gets Make-Up, Not Make-Over November 29, 2022
  Despite its dismal record, the Gates Foundation-sponsored Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) announced a new five-year strategy in September after rebranding itself by dropping ‘Green Revolution’ from its name. Rebranding, not reform Instead of learning from experience and changing its approach accordingly, AGRA’s new strategy promises more of the same. Ignoring evidence, […]
  Timothy A. Wise and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
• Digital Human Rights Need to be Enshrined in Law November 28, 2022
  The upcoming consultation on the Global Digital Compact presents a unique opportunity to ensure that human rights in the digital world are protected in international common standards. The United Nations has proposed a Global Digital Compact, a set of shared principles for our digital future, which is scheduled to be agreed upon by Member States […]
  Emma Gibson
• UN Deploys Unarmed Weapon in Humanitarian & Peacekeeping Operations November 28, 2022
  A sign outside the United Nations reads, perhaps half-seriously, that it is a “No Drone Zone”—and “launching, landing or operating Unmanned or Remote-Controlled aircraft in this area is prohibited”. The “warning” comes even as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) – or drones – are some of the new weapons of war deployed mostly by the US, […]
  Thalif Deen
• Push Forward – Act Now to End Violence Against Women and Girls November 25, 2022
  Five years ago, the global #MeToo movement brought new urgency and visibility to the extent of violence against women and girls. Millions of survivors came forward to share their experience. They forced the world to recognise a reality that shames every one of us. Their courage and voice led to a powerful collective activism and […]
  Sima Bahous
• End Violence Against Women and Girls November 25, 2022
  As we now have entered the 21st century, we must end violence against girls and women. Attacking and abusing girls and women as a means of warfare, the war-machinery or domestic violence as a result of crisis, is absolutely abhorrent and unacceptable. Exposing half of the world’s population to the risks of violence because of […]
  Yasmine Sherif
• LGBTI in Iraq: Defending Identity in the Face of Harassment, Stigma and Death November 25, 2022
  It’s mostly people in their twenties sitting on a terrace in the shade of a beautiful grove of trees: black clothes, piercings, tattoos and some purple streaks in their hair. It could be a trendy cafe in Berlin, Paris or any other European capital, but the sunset call to prayer reminds us that we are […]
  Karlos Zurutuza
• Black ‘Fraud-Days’ and the Shocking Cost of Staying Fashionable November 25, 2022
  Please take a quick look at this short report before rushing to shop on a Black Friday, Christmas sales and all those long chains of big discounts and wholesales, most of them are fake, as often denounced by consumers organisations that report that the business usually inflates prices before launching such deals. Just a couple […]
  Baher Kamal
• Cattle Turn Into New Currency Amid Inflation in Zimbabwe November 25, 2022
  In 2007 as inflation walloped the Zimbabwean currency, rendering it valueless, then 54-year-old Langton Musaigwa of Mataruse village west of Zimbabwe in Mberengwa district switched to cattle as his currency. He wasn’t alone; scores of other villagers in his locality followed suit. In no time, cattle became a new currency as the Zimbabwean dollar went […]
  Jeffrey Moyo