How Are the World’s Children Doing?
A UNICEF report titled “The Children Left Behind”, to be released today, examines the level of inequality in the education, well-being and health of children in the world’s richest countries. The...
View ArticleBegging for Food
Officials from five aid agencies who have just returned from a trip to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, or North Korea) say they saw evidence of looming food shortages and alarming...
View ArticleBad Blood
On Monday, 14 March 2011, seven Guatemalan citizens filed suit against US health officials over nonconsensual medical experiments – including the infection of some 700 Guatemalan prisoners, soldiers,...
View ArticleNobel Women’s Initiative 2011
Yesterday, 23 May, the third international gathering of the Nobel Women’s Initiative opened its gates in Quebec, Canada. This year it carries the title Women Forging a New Security: Ending Sexual...
View ArticleWorld Water Week 2011
For many of us, water is such a fixture of everyday life that we take it for granted and even waste it — forgetting that more than 1 billion people in the developing world do not have access to it at...
View ArticleNo Universal Solutions: The Politics of Biotechnology in Europe and the...
In May 2003, the United States and several cooperating countries filed a case at the World Trade Organization (WTO) charging the European Union (EU) with maintaining an illegal, non-science based...
View ArticleThe GBCHealth Conference: Public-Private Partnerships for Stronger Global...
At the GBCHealth Conference in New York last week, business, civil society, government, and other key stakeholders gathered to discuss the role of business in global health. Topics discussed included...
View ArticleCombatting Cocaine Production in Bolivia, Colombia and Peru
The coca plant is native to the Andes. Its bush has been cultivated and traditionally consumed by local people for centuries. Many products and the leaves themselves can be legally purchased in Peru...
View ArticleWhy Should Distributing the Polio Vaccine in Pakistan lead to Death?
The huge rise in militancy across Pakistan (pdf) is also creating a number of hazards for aid workers. On New Year’s Day gunmen on motorbikes ambushed and killed six female aid workers and a doctor in...
View ArticleThe Food Threat to Human Civilization
PALO ALTO – Humanity faces a growing complex of serious, highly interconnected environmental problems, including much-discussed challenges like climate change, as well as the equally or more serious...
View ArticleDiagnostics for Global Health
CORVALLIS, OREGON – In developed countries, most people take for granted that when they are sick, they will have access to timely diagnosis and treatment. Indeed, while the diagnostic process – which...
View ArticleFood for All
LONDON – With food prices having doubled in the past decade, food security is back on the international agenda. How can the world produce more to feed the next billion people? How can agricultural...
View ArticleSouth Africa’s Winnable AIDS Battle
ERFURT – In the battle against HIV/AIDS, South Africa was for many years the perfect example of what not to do. Until recently, the government’s response to the epidemic, which threatened the country’s...
View ArticleHealth or Defense
Obamacare, now in its awkward early stages of implementation, is the American military’s ticket home. The completion of the last element in America’s welfare state –the last strand of the social safety...
View ArticleWhat Role for UN Peacekeepers in Tackling Ebola?
This article was originally published by IPI Global Observatory on 8 September, 2014. The spread of the Ebola virus in West Africa is “racing ahead” of efforts to control it, according to the World...
View ArticleChina’s Cities Need More Babies, But One Child Policy Still Rules the Provinces
This article was originally published by The Conversation on 6 February, 2015. After 35 years of consistently strict government control over family size, China’s so-called “one child policy” seems to...
View ArticlePolio Wars: Conspiracy and Democracy in Pakistan
This article was originally published by OpenDemocracy on 18 September, 2015. Between December 2012 and early 2015, 78 people were murdered and dozens of others injured because they tried to administer...
View ArticleCould Iran Be the Next Country to Legalise Cannabis and Opium?
This article was originally published by The Conversation on 22 October, 2015. After Uruguay courageously legalised the use of cannabis under a new drug policy, could Iran be the next country to make...
View ArticleWhat Challenges Does 2016 Hold for Sub-Saharan Africa?
This article was originally published by the Global Observatory on 20 January 2016. Akin to its physical landscape, the political environment of Sub-Saharan Africa in 2015 varied greatly from country...
View ArticleWar on Disease? Zika Sheds Light on Growing Military Role in Global Health
This article was originally published by IPI Global Observatory on 5 February 2016. On Monday, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the Zika virus a public health emergency of international...
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