Mining giant Rio Tinto Face Environmental, Human Rights Complaint in Papua New Guinea
Contamination of rivers and streams by mine waste in the vicinity of the Panguna copper mine in the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, Papua New Guinea. Credit: Catherine Wilson
CANBERRA, Australia, Jan 4 2021 (IPS) – Local communities in the vicinity of the abandoned Panguna copper mine, have taken decisive action to hold the global mining multinational, Rio Tinto, accountable for alleged environmental and human rights violations during the mine’s operations between 1972 and 1989.
The mine operated in the mountains of central Bougainville in Papua New Guinea until 1989.
The complaint by 156 residents was lodged with the Australian Government in September by and subsequently accepted in November, paving the way for a non-judicial mediation process.
“We and the communities we are working with have now entered …
Intellectual Property Cause of Death, Genocide
KUALA LUMPUR and SYDNEY, Feb 9 2021 (IPS) – Refusal to temporarily suspend several World Trade Organization (WTO) intellectual property (IP) provisions to enable much faster and broader progress in addressing the COVID-19 pandemic should be grounds for International Criminal Court prosecution for genocide.
Jomo Kwame Sundaram
Making life-saving vaccines, medicines and equipment available, freely or affordably, has been crucial for containing the spread of many infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, HIV-AIDS, polio and smallpox.
Jonas Salk, who developed the polio vaccine, insisted that it remain patent free. Asked who owned the patent 65 years ago, he , “The people I would say. There is no patent. You might as well ask, could you patent the sun?”
Intellectual property induced scarcity
However, cross-border enforcement of intellectual property …
The Ongoing Fight for Gender Parity in Lebanon
Zwein during one of the 2019 protests in Beirut. Credit: Victoria El-Khoury Zwein
BEIRUT, Lebanon, Mar 12 2021 (IPS) – The fight for equality around the globe has taken a few steps forward in some countries which provides a glimmer of hope for future generations for increased female participation and representation. However, that particular fight is taking new shapes and forms in multiple corners of the world, where women are still persecuted, silenced, threatened, killed, harassed, and stripped off their basic human rights on a daily basis. The question today is, when will the world become a safer place for women and girls?
While the degree of severity is uneven in countries, Lebanese women and girls struggle each day on multiple fronts. While many Civil Society organizations (CSOs) and United Nations agencies work on Sustainable Development Goal (S…
On World Malaria Day, We Must Step Up Efforts to Combat Malaria
The writer is Spokesperson and Head of Communications at Unitaid*, hosted by the World Health Organization (WHO)
The WHO says Malaria is a life-threatening disease caused by parasites that are transmitted to people through the bites of infected female Anopheles mosquitoes. It is preventable and curable. WHO recommends protection for all people at risk of malaria with effective malaria vector control. Two forms of vector control – insecticide-treated mosquito nets and indoor residual spraying – are effective in a wide range of circumstances.
Distribution of mosquito nets in Kadiolo, region of Sikasso, Mali June 2020. Credit: PSI, A US based NGO. The UN commemorates World Malaria Day on Sunday April 25.
GENEVA, Apr 23 2021 (IPS) – Despite its 229 million cases and 409,000 deaths in 2019, malaria is an overlooked epidemic. The emergence o…
‘Let’s Talk About Sex’ Discussion Highlights Risks to Women
Nordic Talk moderator Katja Iversen shown here with Natasha Wang Mwansa, Emi Mahmoud, Dr Natalia Kanem and Flemming Møller Mortensen during a recent Nordic Talks webinar. Credit: Shuprova Tasneem
DHAKA and NEW YORK, Jun 4 2021 (IPS) – Every , a girl or woman dies from pregnancy or childbirth-related complications, including unsafe abortions. Every year, around girls are married while in their childhoods. An additional are now at risk of child marriage due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
In this context, the most recent Nordic Talk—a high-level debate on bodily autonomy and sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) as a cornerstone of gender equality, aptly titled Let s Talk About Sex — could not have come at a better time.
Moderator Katja Iversen, Dane of the Year (2018) and former CEO of Women Deliver, kicked off the discussion by focu…
Vaccines Delayed are Vaccines Denied
A global system in which poor countries are unable to develop and produce their own vaccines to match their demand is not sustainable; particularly when faced by potential future pandemics. Credit: PAHO/Karen González.
Jul 20 2021 (IPS) – “Vaccine equity is the challenge of our time,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), told the gathering in opening remarks. “And we are failing”at a special ministerial meeting of the Economic and Social Council.
Earlier, G7 leaders wrote a letter of support declaring that wealthier countries should pay the cost to vaccinate low and middle income countries.<…
COVID-19 Recovery Requires Justice Beyond Rhetoric
Credit: Global Policy Forum
BONN, Germany, Sep 16 2021 (IPS) – Policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting economic crisis have exacerbated rather than reduced global inequalities. On the one hand, the net wealth of billionaires has risen to record levels since the outbreak of the pandemic (increasing by more than US$ 5 trillion to US$ 13.1 trillion from 2020 to 2021), on the other hand, the number of people living in extreme poverty has also increased massively (by approx. 100 million to 732 million in 2020).
These contrasts alone show that something is fundamentally wrong in the world.
In response to the disastrous effects of the pandemic, there was much talk of solidarity with regard to health support, including access to vaccines. But the brutal national competition for vaccines shows that solidarity is embraced by many world leaders me…
Inclusive Education to Break the Cycles of Poverty
Street Library in Mayotte, July 2016. Credit: François Phliponeau/ATD Fourth World – Centre Joseph Wresinski
NEW YORK, Oct 15 2021 (IPS) – In September 2021, children in the northern hemisphere returned to school after the summer break. For some, the end of the holidays signaled a return to normalcy and to the joys of learning after facing months of school closures due to the Covid-19 pandemic. For the majority of children in the Global South, however, the return to reality looked grimmer.
Digital divide leaving billions behind
Many children have been unable to pursue their education due to school closures reported in over 188 countries. While governments have sought to implement solutions for children to continue learning from home using broadcast and Internet-based remote learning policies, nearly one third of children worldwide could not make us…
Omicron & Developing Countries – Where Threats are the Greatest
A woman receives a dose of a COVID-19 vaccine at a health clinic in Garowe, Somalia.
As scientists continue to investigate the Omicron COVID-19 variant, the World Health Organization (WHO) last week urged countries not to panic but to prepare for its likely spread. Credit: UNICEF/Ismael Taxta
GENEVA, Dec 7 2021 (IPS) – On 25 November, news emerged from South Africa of a new COVID-19 variant. It has since been identified as Omicron, a Greek alphabet derivation the World Health Organization (WHO) reserves for virus variants “of concern”.
For now, scientists are still racing to understand Omicron’s virulence. There is, however, growing concern that its high number of mutations make it more transmissible and more resistant to existing vaccines (or previous infections) than other variants.
Currently, these worries are based on preliminary analysis emerg…
Three Key Questions for Understanding Shifts in Global Poverty
Ending poverty and hunger once and for all – is it possible? Credit: United Nations
LONDON, Feb 9 2022 (IPS) – In 2010 and the following years, there was attention to the fact that much of global poverty had shifted to middle-income countries (for example , , and ).
The world’s poor hadn’t moved of course, but the countries that are home to large numbers of poor people had got better off on average and poverty hadn’t fallen as much as one might expect with economic growth in those countries moving from low-income to middle-income.
There were also some big questions over the . One could say the world’s poor live not in the world’s poorest countries but in fast growing countries and countries with albeit ‘locked’ by domestic political economy (who doesn…