Global Issues
News headlines
Energy Efficiency for Developing Countries: Pivoting from Fewer Inputs to More Outputs
- Inter Press Service
WASHINGTON, Dec 16 (IPS) - Energy efficiency (EE) is often marketed as a tool to save energy and money. The oft-repeated mantra is doing “more with less”, namely producing more goods with less energy. But, as set out in a recent World Bank report (which I co-authored), EE can do something that is often much more important for developing countries: it can produce the additional goods and services needed to raise standards of living.
Lockdown in Chains
- Inter Press Service
Dec 16 (IPS) - Long before the Covid-19 pandemic grounded much of the world, lockdown, confinement, violence, and isolation was the daily reality for hundreds of thousands of people with disabilities around the world. Many are locked in sheds, cages, or tethered to trees and are forced to eat, sleep, urinate, and defecate in the same tiny area, sometimes for years. Why? Simply because they have a mental health condition—a psychosocial disability.
Sid Chatterjee Epitomizes the New Leadership Model of UN Resident Coordinators Worldwide
- Inter Press Service
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 16 (IPS) - Siddharth Chatterjee, who has served with the United Nations for over 20 years, has been appointed as the new Resident Coordinator in China, the world’s second largest economy after the United States.
Pandemic Puts Jamaican Children at Heightened Risk of Abuse
- Inter Press Service
KINGSTON, Jamaica, Dec 16 (IPS) - In Jamaica, school playgrounds are deserted, filled only with phantom shrieks of delight. Blackboards remain devoid of arithmetic and uniforms hang wrinkle-free in closets. When the first case of Covid hit Jamaican shores in early March, the government closed primary and secondary schools and over 500,000 children transitioned to remote learning. The majority of schools have yet to resume face-to-face classes since the March 13 closure.
Getting Children in Lebanon Back to School Amongst Multiple Crises
- Inter Press Service
BEIRUT, Lebanon, Dec 15 (IPS) - Education and health care were high on the agenda when the United Nations vowed to work toward a better future by setting 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to be met by 2030.
USA Downgraded as Civil Liberties Deteriorate Across the Americas
- Inter Press Service
São Paulo/ Washington DC, Dec 15 (IPS) - Few images better illustrate the recent decline in civil liberties in the United States than that of peaceful protesters near the White House being violently dispersed so Donald Trump could stage a photo-op.
India: National Education Policy 2020 Could Transform Early Childhood Education If Implemented Effectively
- Inter Press Service
THANE, MAHARASHTRA, India, Dec 15 (IPS) - It is after almost 34 years that the central government approved the new National Education Policy 2020 on July 29, 2020. This document contains comments on the entire education system and its various recommendations are being heavily debated.
Can Conservation and Development Be Balanced in Sri Lanka?
- Inter Press Service
COLOMBO, Dec 15 (IPS) - The Sri Lankan government recently cancelled three circulars that protected 700,000 hectares of forests, labelled Other State Forests (OSFs), which are not classified as protected areas but account for five percent of the island nation’s remaining 16.5 percent of forest cover.
Intellectual Property Monopolies Block Vaccine Access
- Inter Press Service
SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 15 (IPS) - Just before the World Health Assembly (WHA), an 18 May open letter by world leaders and experts urged governments to ensure that all COVID-19 vaccines, treatments and tests are patent-free, fairly distributed and available to all, free of charge.
Helping Women to Step out of the Shadow Pandemic of Women Abuse
- Inter Press Service
NEW YORK, Dec 14 (IPS) - The United Nations Secretary-General’s UNiTE by 2030 to End Violence against Women campaign marked the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-based Violence (25 November to 10 December 2020) at a time when COVID-19 exacerbated the conditions women operate under.
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