The current coronavirus pandemic can offer insight into how to shake-up traditional methods of data collection, and might provide an opportunity to do it in more innovative ways, in turn enhancing progress towards gender equality. “Necessity is the mother of invention, and when you look at society’s crisis – whether that’s a health crisis or […]

The post Q&A: COVID-19 Means we Must Innovate Data Collection, Especially on Gender appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Globalization has been a driver for increased prosperity world-wide, but it has been in reverse in the last years due to the growth of populism in the USA and Europe. The COVID-19 pandemic may well provide further momentum to increasingly national-interest oriented policies in the west. Nevertheless, a common response to COVID-19 is needed, where […]

The post COVID-19: Developing Countries Must Not be Left Behind appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Richard Cupitt is a Senior Fellow and Director of the Partnerships in Proliferation Prevention program at Stimson. His areas of expertise include WMD nonproliferation, export controls, and foreign policy.

The post COVID-19 Pandemic Vulnerable to Exploitation by Proliferators, Terrorists & Criminals appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Interruptions to vaccination programmes caused by the COVID-19 pandemic could result in new waves of measles or polio outbreaks, health experts warn. A growing number of one-off immunisation campaigns and national routine vaccine introductions are being delayed amid social distancing and other measures to curb the spread of SARS-CoV-2, leaving millions unprotected. Uptake of routine […]

The post Polio, Measles Outbreaks ‘Inevitable’, Say Vaccine Experts appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) on Tuesday highlighted crimes against humanity and grave mismanagement of the law in Libya during a release of their latest report on the North African nation.  Fatou Bensouda, Chief Prosecutor of the ICC, said enforced disappearances, arbitrary detentions, hate speech, and severe maltreatment of detainees remains a massive concern in […]

The post Enforced Disappearances, Arbitrary Detentions, Hate Speech & Attacks on Civilians – ICC Report on Libya appeared first on Inter Press Service.

It’s eight o’clock in the morning and Pascuala Ninantay is carrying two large containers of water in her wheelbarrow to prepare with neighbouring women farmers 200 litres of organic fertiliser, which will then be distributed to fertilise their crops, in this town in the Andes highlands of Peru. “We grow healthy, nutritious food without chemicals,” […]

The post Coronavirus Hasn´t Slowed Down Ecological Women Farmers in Peru’s Andes Highlands appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The world’s poorer nations, reeling under an unrelenting attack on their fragile economies by the COVID-19 pandemic, have suffered an equally deadly body blow: being buried under heavy debt burdens. Abiy Ahmed, prime minister of Ethiopia who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019, said last week that in 2019, 64 countries, nearly half […]

The post World’s Poor Hit by Double Jeopardy: a Deadly Virus & a Devastating Debt Burden appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Franciscka Lucien is Executive Director of the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti. Joel Curtain is the Director of Advocacy at Partners in Health.

The post Time for the World Bank and IMF to Be the Solution, Not the Problem appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Steven Broad is Executive Director, TRAFFIC, the Wildlife Trade Monitoring Network

The post COVID-19 & Human Health Risks Linked to Wildlife Trade Practices appeared first on Inter Press Service.

As the COVID-19 pandemic worsened in April, many Americans were shocked by the extent that black Americans were being disproportionately impacted: higher infection rates, more deaths and greater job loss. But many black Americans were not surprised. This is not new. The same dynamic has been going on at times of crisis for decades and […]

The post Black Americans are Bearing the Brunt of Coronavirus Recession – This Should Come as no Surprise appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Dr. Azza Karam is the Secretary General of Religions for Peace International and Professor of Religion and Development at the Vrije Universiteit (VU), Amsterdam; Dr. Mustafa Y. Ali is the Secretary General of the Global Network of Religions for Children (GNRC) based in Nairobi, Kenya.

The post Religion & its Discontents: Considerations Around COVID-19 & Africa appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has shown us something that most of us haven’t seen in our lifetimes: Large numbers of people unable to have two meals a day.  The tragedy is that the government has enough and more foodgrains to feed people during this time; the real issue is of distribution—both in terms of broken […]

The post The Role of Civil Society in Times of Crisis appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The digital divide has become more pronounced than ever amid the global coronavirus lockdown, but experts are concerned that in the current circumstances this divide, where over 46 percent of the world’s population remain without technology or internet access, could grow wider — particularly among women.   “There were already deep divides in access to technologies […]

The post COVID-19: The Digital Divide Grows Wider Amid Global Lockdown appeared first on Inter Press Service.

A former Pakistani child bride, who was wrongly accused of killing her husband at 13 and subsequently spent almost two decades in prison, is making history by being the first victim of a miscarriage of justice to seek compensation from the state, say legal human rights experts.   This March, Rani Tanveer, who was released in […]

The post Former Child Bride Holds Pakistan to Account for Wrongful Imprisonment in Historic Legal Challenge appeared first on Inter Press Service.

They are young; they are students. They marched to remember eight students, much like themselves, who were summarily shot for their love of the country.

“Next year, the Cuban economy will continue to progress despite the blockade, external financial restrictions and the international situation,” asserted Minister of the Economy Marino Murillo Jorge, during a November 28 Council of Ministers meeting, presided by President Raúl Castro Ruz. The 2015 Economic Plan, Murillo reported, is fundamentally focused on maximizing efficiency...

Army General Raúl Castro Ruz, President of the Councils of State and Ministers, yesterday afternoon, December 2, received the Honorable Denis Sassou Nguesso, President of the Republic of Congo, who is making an official visit to Cuba. During their meeting, the two leaders discussed the development of the countries 50-year relationship...

LATIN AMERICAN MEDICINE DAY Medical professionals honored This December 3, celebrated in Cuba as Latin American Medicine Day, provided an opportunity to recognize those who, with disinterested humility, “struggle every day for the lives of our people and in other sister countries,”

José Ramón Machado Ventura, second secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) Central Committee, received on the morning of December 4, the general secretary of El Salvador’s Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional (FMLN), Medardo González Trejo, who is leading a delegation visiting Cuba on the invitation of the PCC.

Army General Raúl Castro Ruz, President of the Councils of State and Ministers, held official talks, on Sunday December 7, with the Honorable Freundel Stuart, Prime Minister of Barbados, who is visiting the country as the head of the Barbados delegation to the 5th CARICOM-Cuba Summit.

The 5th Caricom-Cuba Summit began today, December 8, in Havana’s Palacio de la Revolución, with the purpose of strengthening relations, and reviewing cooperation agreements between the 14 Caribbean countries and Cuba.

CARICOM-CUBA SUMMIT Toward the indispensable political, economic and social integration of Latin America and the Caribbean Key remarks by President Raúl Castro opening the Fifth CARICOM-Cuba Summit in Havana, December 8, 2014

Cuban President Army General Raúl Castro Ruz opened the XIII Summit of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America-People's Trade Agreement (Alba-TCP), this morning December 14, and called for strengthening regional unity. - ALBA to celebrate 20th anniversary in Havana