Leveraging innovation, partnership to shore up food security in Asia and the Pacific
Transforming food systems in Asia and the Pacific to make them more sustainable, resilient and productive, is vital for countries to rebound from the impact of Covid-19 and address chronic undernourishment, a UN regional forum on food security has heard. Gathered virtually at the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)’s 35th Regional Conference for Asia and the Pacific, governments, civil society...
UK publishes controversial bill it says breaks Brexit treaty
The British government has published the controversial new UK Internal Market Bill which it’s been argued necessitates the rewriting of parts of the Brexit withdrawal agreement. The new legislation published Sept. 9, is seen as a move to override key parts of the current Brexit deal and once again raises the possibility of a hard border between the Republic of Ireland and...
Burkina Faso: Over 535,000 children under five ‘acutely’ malnourished
New data from UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has revealed worsening nutritional situation for children in Burkina Faso, with more than 535,000 children under the age of five suffering from acute malnutrition—an unprecedented level. Among them, some 156,500 children are “severely” malnourished, leaving them nine times more likely to die than well-nourished children, according to UNICEF. “The aggravating factors causing the nutritional situation...
Kushner tours Arab states to push for more normalization deals with Israel
U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and adviser, Jared Kushner, has begun a tour of Persian Gulf Arab countries to push them to follow in the footsteps of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in normalizing ties with Israel. Kushner visited the UAE capital on Aug. 31 accompanying a joint Israeli-U.S. delegation on the first commercial flight from Tel Aviv to Abu...
‘We are not a vassal state’: Philippines’s Duterte won’t stop infrastructure projects with U.S.-sanctioned Chinese firms
The Philippines will not be cowed by a U.S. blacklist on Chinese companies and will continue doing business with the sanctioned firms, a spokesman for President Rodrigo Duterte said, insisting Manila will not bow to a foreign power. Duterte won’t halt ongoing projects with Chinese businesses despite the American blacklist, spokesman Harry Roque told reporters Sept. 1, arguing infrastructure is...
Cuba medical school trained doctors share lessons for dealing with Covid-19
“First and foremost, we have to understand and look at ourselves and say we have the power to make change,” said Dr. Arabia Mollete, a board-certified emergency medicine physician and graduate of Cuba’s Latin American School of Medicine. Participating in a video forum and one of eight panelists, including six Cuba medical school trained physicians, Dr. Mollete shared her coronavirus...
Migrants trying to reach Europe pushed to deadly Atlantic
FUERTEVENTURA, Spain—The only person who wasn’t crying on the boat was two-year-old Noura. Noura’s mother, Hawa Diabaté, was fleeing her native Ivory Coast to what she believed was continental Europe. Unlike the 60 adults on board, only Noura was oblivious to the risks of crossing the open waters of the Atlantic Ocean in an overcrowded rubber dinghy. As the waves quickly...
Deadly politics: Cuba’s Covid-19 treatment and U.S. refusal to save lives
During a phone interview with Africa Watch, Dr. Melissa Barber, the program coordinator of Cuba’s Latin American School of Medicine program and IFCO Passage for Peace, said of the island nation’s 11 million inhabitants it has registered only 88 Covid-19 deaths and 3,482 confirmed cases since the March outbreak of the pandemic. Compare this with the United States. With a...
The myth of Western economic development
Brazilian economist Celso Furtado’s classic 1974 book, “The Myth of Economic Development,” he argues the very idea of Latin America and Africa someday enjoying a similar livelihood as Western Europe and North America is “unrealizable in practice.” He writes that any attempt to generalize, or use as a model, the lifestyles of the world’s well-to-do would lead to a collapse...
The toll of binge drinking on South Africa
The South African Alcohol Alliance (SAAPA), is a collaborative initiative of NGOs (non-governmental organizations) that advocate for evidence-based alcohol policies in sub-Saharan Africa. Over the years the group has reported on the harmful effects of alcohol consumption. Its reporting included the fact that even though over 60 percent of South Africans do not consume alcohol, the population that does...