Students eat lunch in the cafeteria of the João Caffaro Municipal School in Itaboraí, in southeastern Brazil. Schoolchildren returned to eating vegetables and drinking natural fruit juices when the school canteens and the supply of family farming products to the National School Feeding …

Salvadoran fisherman Nicolás Ayala, 63, walks to his boat at the San Luis La Herradura pier, on the Pacific coast of El Salvador, to begin a 24-hour fishing stint offshore. He said that due to the lack of a breakwater at the mouth, where the sea meets the estuary, boa…

Credit: United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation

BANGKOK / BEIJING, Sep 12 2022 (IPS) – The world today faces a future that is in peril. Our challenges have become more complex and interconnected, as we see the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, an uneven economic recovery, a climate emergency, growing inequalities, and an increase in conflicts globally. This year also marks a grim milestone, with .

These events accompany increasing division in the community of nations which threatens to push the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) further out of reach for the Global South.

Adding to these crises, rising food and e…

Medical equipment supplied by the World Food Programme (WFP) arrives in Beijing.
Meanwhile, as COVID-19 infections surged in China, coronavirus experts gathered at the UN health agency in Geneva on January 3, to discuss next steps. Photo courtesy of Yingshi Zhang

BRUSSELS, Jan 4 2023 (IPS) – Three years after the coronavirus first emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan, the Chinese government began in December to abruptly scrap its harsh containment policy known as zero-Covid.

This zero-Covid policy relied on strict lockdowns, use of a Covid tracking app, domestic travel restrictions, and quarantining those who test positive along with their close contacts. But the …

“If people do not change the way antibiotics are used now, these new antibiotics will suffer the same fate as the current ones and become ineffective” . Credit: Adil Siddiqi/IPS

MADRID, Apr 11 2023 (IPS) – Research after research, world s scientists renew their loud alerts agai…

A community health volunteer informs community members about various methods of family planning. Photo Credit: UNFPA Kenya

NAIROBI, Sep 22 2022 (IPS) – Fatuma is a 24 year old girl from Korogocho, an informal settlement in Nairobi. She died in December 2021, from complications arising from an unsafe abortion. Her friend and a few of her neighbors found her bleeding profusely and unable to move. They rushed her to the hospital. Unfortunately, she died before she could see the doctor.

Unfortunately, Fatuma’s story is common for girls and women in Kenya. In fact, at least 7 of them die every day from complications arising from unsafe abortion. Worse still, is that with cur…

An activist during COP27 in Egypt. Credit: Oliver Kornblihtt / Mídia NINJA

BRUSSELS, Jan 25 2023 (IPS) – In 2022, Saudi Arabia “quietly” to 34 years in prison over her Twitter activity, marking the longest Saudi sentence ever for a peaceful activist. Fast forward and award-winning Ugandan author Kakwenza Rukirabashaija was charged with two after making unflattering remarks about the president and his son on Twitter. The message is clear: your well-crafted 280 characters can land you in jail.

But what if, not only your online expressions could put you behind bars, but that the internet, today’s window to the rest of the world shuts down? …

Aradhiya Khan, 25, a transwoman, got her vaccination in the middle of the night in July 2021, when the centre was less crowded, and stood in the women’s line as there was none for her gender.

KARACHI, Oct 31 2023 (IPS) – After months of warding off appeals from his employers to get vaccinated for the COVID-19 disease, Mohammad Yusuf, 24, working as a live-in domestic worker in Karachi’s Clifton area, finally relented and got his first shot.

“I believed that anyone who took the…

Sustainable Agriculture Management Team, FAO

ROME, Apr 6 2020 (IPS) – Together with medical services and transportation, farming and food production have been correctly identified as ‘essential services’ by all countries under lockdown. The Covid-19 pandemic has not yet made a dent in the food supply and so far, there are no reports of shortage of essential food and agricultural goods. All cities and towns are actively coordinating with government agencies, farms, businesses and transport companies to maintain the supply chain and ensure full availability of food for the population,

Kakoli Ghosh

However, despite the efforts, farm gate prices have crashed, there …