Preethi Sundaram is Policy Officer and author of the report and Fiona Salter is a writer, both at International Planned Parenthood Federation.
Young girls in the village of Sonu Khan Almani in Pakistan’s Sindh province perform most of the household chores, like making bread. Credit: Zofeen Ebrahim/IPS
NEW YORK, Mar 16 2015 (IPS) – It is estimated that women account for two-thirds of the 1.4 billion people currently living in extreme poverty. They also make up 60 per cent of the world’s 572 million working poor.
Rapid global change has undoubtedly opened doors for women to participate in social, economic and political life but gender inequality still holds w…
One of her defence lawyers hugs Carmelina Pérez when an appeals court in eastern El Salvador declares her innocent of homicide, on Apr. 23. She had been sentenced to 30 years in prison in June 2014 after suffering a miscarriage. In El Salvador women, especially the poor, suffer from the penalisation of abortion under any…
Nelson Mandela, then Deputy President of the African National Congress of South Africa, raises his fist in the air while addressing the Special Committee Against Apartheid in the General Assembly Hall, June 22, 1990. Global alliance CIVICUS commemorated Mandela Day with a reminder that many rights defenders are jailed …
A reporter stands at a roadblock outside Fukushima’s 20 kilometre exclusive zone in March 2011. Credit: Suvendrini Kakuchi/IPS
NEW YORK, Aug 10 2015 (IPS) – Protesters rallied outside Japan s Sendai nuclear plant a day ahead of its planned opening and four years after the Fukushima disaster galvanised opposition to nuclear power in the country.
In a statement, Kyushu Electric Power Co. said it will begin bringing online the No. 1 reactor at its Sendai facility on Aug. 11, start power generation as early as Aug. 14 and return it to…
Asian nations fear that the Paris Climate Deal will be a watered down minimalistic product without any teeth. Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS
NEW DELHI, India, Nov 22 2015 (IPS) – On a late Friday afternoon as choking smog descended on the Indian Capital, Francois Richier, the French ambassador to India , took some hard questions from scores of journalists about the upcoming climate change talks in Paris this month.
The journalists were discussing the run up to global climate change Conference of Parties, COP 21, which starts 30th November in Paris and one of the reoccurring sentiments was that this meeting is a done deal and that little if anything would be accomplished. Tha…
Juvenile desert locust hoppers. Photo: FAO/G.Tortoli
CAIRO, Apr 13 2016 (IPS) – Now that Yemenis begin to hope that their year-long armed conflict may come to an end as a result of the Gulf Cooperation …
Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka is UN Under-Secretary-General and UN Women Executive Director.
Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, UN Under-Secretary-General and UN Women Executive Director. Credit: UN Photo/Devra Berkowitz.
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 1 2016 (IPS) – The drugging, abduction and violent gang rape of a 16-year-old girl in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil calls us all to turn the tide of sexual violence against women and girls in Brazil and in every country in the world.
Her silence was broken by the men who boastfully posted their images of the rape, deepening her abuse by showing her body to the world, in the confident expectation of approval by their peers and impunity from pun…
A child carries a box of relief supplies to her tent at the Mardan refugee camp in Pakistan. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 29 2016 (IPS) – Millions of children still die before reaching their fifth birthday every year, according to the 2016 State of The World’s Children Report released here Tuesday by the UN Children s Fund (UNICEF).
The , which is released annually, shows that a country’s income does not always determine progress in child mortality. Many poorer countries are outpacing their richer neighbours in reducing their mortality rates, and some rapidly growing economies – including India and Nigeria – have be…
Martin Khor is Executive Director of the South Centre, a think tank for developing countries, based in Geneva.
Dark pollution clouds over Cairo. Credit: Khaled Moussa Al-Omrani/IPS.
PENANG, Nov 11 2016 (IPS) – New research is showing that air pollution is a powerful if silent killer, causing 6.5 million worldwide deaths as well as being the major cause of climate change.
Air pollution has emerged as a leading cause of deaths and serious ailments in the world. Emissions that cause air pollution and are Greenhouse Gases are also the main factor causing climate change.
…
Jomo Kwame Sundaram is a former economics professor who served as a senior UN official during 2005-2015. Tan Zhai Gen is an University of Oxford biochemistry graduate currently involved in research. Both are Malaysians.
Health problems stemming from carbohydrates, especially sugar over-consumption are correlated to growing overweight, obesity and non-communicable diseases, such as diabetes, throughout the world. Credit: IPS
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Mar 22 2017 (IPS) – In 2015, after revelations that the company had funded researchers to present academic papers recommending exercise to address obesity and ill health, while marginalizing the role of dietary consumpt…