CHINA – Constructing an irrigation network in Qinghai Province. Workers were paid part of their wages in food supplied by the World Food Programme. Credit WFP/Sarah Errington
LETHBRIDGE, Canada, Sep 8 2022 (IPS) – As our planet continues to heat up, extreme weather has affected many of us. From the west coast of North America across Europe, the Middle East and Asia to Pakistan and New Zealand, wildfires and flash floods have destroyed homes and property and disrupted the daily lives of millions.
Supply chains, already badly affected by COVID, have been further complicated by drying rivers and waterways. In the more developed countries, insurance covers much of the short…
Sungjoon Ham, Souta Oshiro, and Alex Yoon are middle school learners living in the USA and Asia. This is the first in a series of opinion pieces written by young people under the banner of Youth Thought Leaders.
Souta Oshiro, Seoul, Korea. “This is a meme that I created. It is about donating foods that you overbought to food banks. I tried to make it funny and effective.” Credit: Souta Oshiro
Seoul, Tokyo, Boston, Jun 13 2022 (IPS) – Johnny, living in the United States (US), goes to his school and g…
Maria Beumont, MD, is Vice President and Chief Medical Officer for the TB Alliance
Tuberculosis remains the leading infectious cause of death in the world, responsible for 1.6 million deaths a year, and is an active and acute crisis in many countries. Credit: Athar Parvaiz/IPS
NEW YORK, Oct 13 2023 (IPS) – At the end of September, two weeks after the United Nations held a High-Level Meeting on Tuberculosis (TB), a torrential storm dropped 6” of rain on New York City. The intensity…
Sam Ben-Meir is a professor of philosophy and world religions at Mercy College in New York City.
Credit: Human Rights Center, University of Dayton, Ohio
NEW YORK, Apr 21 2020 (IPS) – Ingmar Bergman’s 1957 film The Seventh Seal is set in medieval Sweden, as the bubonic plague ravages the countryside. In one famous scene, a procession of zombie-like flagellants enters a village and interrupts a comic stage-show.
The townspeople are present to hear the procession’s leader, a bombastic preacher who proclaims that death is coming for them all: they are full of sin – lustful and gluttonous – and the plague is God’s punishment for their wicked ways.
…
Prof. Azza Karam is Secretary General, Religions for Peace International
Religions for Peace Interreligious Council of Albania distributing Covid relief supplies from the Multi-religious Humanitarian Fund. Credit: Erzen Carja
NEW YORK, Aug 4 2020 (IPS) – I have never been interested in religion or spirituality before, but I found myself tuning in to all sorts of on-line religion and spirituality related forums “in search of something.”
These are the words of a 30-something single young, middle class man (born into a Protestant-Catholic family background) in a European country.
The latter is known more for turning several churches into museums …
Member of Parliament Juliet Cuthbert-Flynn. Credit: Kate Chappell
KINGSTON, Jamaica, Feb 12 2021 (IPS) – It was a joyful, tearful celebration in the early morning hours of Dec. 30, 2020 for countless Argentinians when they heard the news: the senate had legalized terminations up to 14 weeks of pregnancy. Prior to this, activists have said that more than 3,000 women died of botched, illegal abortions since 1983. And across the Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) region, this renewed sense of optimism was compounded after President Joe Biden what is known as the “global gag rule,” which essentially denied funding to international non-profit organizations that …
Siddharth Chatterjee with CS Eugene Wamalwa, Heads of Missions from the United Nations Mission and other development partners visited the Frontier Counties Development Council Counties with a view of leveraging on opportunities considering geographic proximities in addressing shared developmental challenges in the marginalized Counties. Credit: West Pokot County, February 2020
NAIROBI, Kenya, Jan 4 2021 (IPS) –
Happy New Year, Kenya.
Several milestones in my personal and professional life have made Kenya a cherished place for me. I started my UNICEF career in Rumbek, South Sudan in June 2000, and my rest and recuperation breaks were in Nairo…
STOCKHOLM / ROME, Jun 17 2021 (IPS) –
Getting hard to breathe
hard to believe in anything
at all, but fear.
Peter Gabriel, Mother
of ViolenceLike most male Swedes of my age I had to enter obligatory military service for almost a year. In my barrack was a “born-again-Christian” who when he became angry shouted “Now you mock me, but when the Last Judgement has come I will sit in heaven and smile down at you while you burn in Hell!” Since then I have wondered about the last book of the Bible, the Book of Revelation. It was written by a frustrated Christian man who by the end of 100 CE by Roman authorities had been deported to an isolate…
HAMILTON, Canada, Nov 23 2021 (IPS) – The has become the main driver of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and drug-resistant infections that threaten human health and the global economy.
Given that development, the UN designated November 18-24 as , to remind us all to handle antimicrobials with greater care.
Antimicrobials – which range from antibiotic and antiviral medicines to disinfectant and antiseptic chemicals – help prevent or treat human, animal and plant infections and have contributed immensely to health and progress worldwide.
Now, however, common antibiotics, as well as first-line antimicrobials for infectious diseases such as HIV and …