Talking Openly – The Way to Prevent Teenage Pregnancy

A teenage mother and her toddler in Bonpland, a rural municipality in the northern province of Misiones in Argentina. Latin America has the second highest regional rate of early pregnancies in the world, after sub-Saharan Africa. Credit: Fabiana Frayssinet/IPS

A teenage mother and her toddler in Bonpland, a rural municipality in the northern province of Misiones in Argentina. Latin America has the second highest regional rate of early pregnancies in the world, after sub-Saharan Africa. Credit: Fabiana Frayssinet/IPS

BUENOS AIRES, Jul 8 2016 (IPS) – In plain and simple language, an Argentine video aimed at teenagers explains how to get sexual pleasure while bein…

Autism in Bangladesh: Reducing Discrimination Through Innovation

This article is part of a series of stories and op-eds issued by IPS on the occasion of this year’s World Autism Awareness Day

Children s Cultural Program / Town Hall Meeting. Dec 14, 2015. Shilpakala Academy. Organized by Parents Forum for the Differently Able. A short play by nearly 30 children and youth with NDDs. Over 100 parents took part in the meeting asking a whole variety of questions and expressing their concerns related to NDDs.

Children’s Cultural Program / Town Hall Meeting. Dec 14, 2015. Shilpakala Academy. Organized by Parents Forum for the Differently Able. A short play by nearly 30 children and youth with NDDs. Over 100 parents took part in the meeting askin…

This Is the Nation of 170 Million Enslaved Children

Credit: UN News Centre

ROME, Jun 12 2017 (IPS) – Globally over 1.5 billion people live in countries that are affected by conflict, violence and fragility. Meantime, around 200 million people are affected by disasters every year—a third of them are children. And a significant proportion of the 168 million children engaged in child labour live in areas affected by conflict and disaster. These are the facts. Up to you to reflect on the immediate future of humankind.

Conflicts and disasters have a devastating impact on people’s lives, the United Nations .

“They kill, maim, injure, force people to flee their homes, destroy livelihoods, push people into po…

Towards a Resource Efficient and Pollution Free Asia-Pacific

Shamshad Akhtar, is Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP)
Erik Solheim, is Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)

BANGKOK, Thailand, Sep 4 2017 (IPS) – Senior government officials from across Asia and the Pacific will meet in Bangkok this week for the first-ever Asia-Pacific Ministerial Summit on the Environment. The high-level meeting is co-convened by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UN ESCAP) and UN Environment and is a unique opportunity for the region’s environment leaders to discuss how they can work together towards a resource efficient and pollution-free Asia-Pacific.

Education, Not Condemnation, Say Women Leaders Who Survived Violence

Angela, 15, from Hyderabad, India. Her vision of a violence-free world would be to live like the mermaid in her painting - free and happy. Stella Paul/IPS

Angela, 15, from Hyderabad, India. Her vision of a violence-free world would be to live like the mermaid in her painting – free and happy. Stella Paul/IPS

INDIA/CAMEROON, Nov 26 2017 (IPS) – Sally Mboumien remembers the day she pressed a steaming hot stone against her chest. In Bawock, the rural community of western Cameroon where she grew up, young girls often had their young, sprouting breasts flattened with a hot iron or a hammer or spatulas that had been heated over burning coals.

This was good for the girls bec…

Monsoon Season Threatens More Misery for Rohingyas

Labourers urgently construct new roads ahead of the monsoon season in Bangladesh’s Kutupalong Rohingya camp. Credit: Naimul Haq/IPS

Labourers urgently construct new roads ahead of the monsoon season in Bangladesh’s Kutupalong Rohingya camp. Credit: Naimul Haq/IPS

DHAKA, Feb 28 2018 (IPS) – More than half a million Rohingya refugees crammed into over 30 makeshift camps in Cox’s Bazar in southeast Bangladesh face a critical situation as the cyclone and monsoon season begins in a few weeks’ time.

The United Nations and international and local NGOs, along with the Bangladeshi government, have issued emergency calls to safeguard the population, especially those who a…

Peru’s Poor and Disabled Struggle in the Shadows

Carmen Rosa (left) and Maria Elena in their small home in Cajamarca, Peru. Credit: Andrea Vale/IPS

Carmen Rosa (left) and Maria Elena in their small home in Cajamarca, Peru. Credit: Andrea Vale/IPS

LIMA, May 30 2018 (IPS) – Eighty percent of the world’s disabled live in developing nations, according to a report by the United Nations. Their identities, lives and stories are of course varied – but what isn’t is the stigma and lack of resources they face.

If one were to take a ride up a dirt road high in the Andes Mountains, one would find Roberto sitting propped up against the wall of a barn on the side of that road, watching the occasional truck whizz by. Roberto, …

Old Age Is a Curse in India

The swift descent of the elderly in India into non-communicable diseases could have various disastrous consequences.

Old age morbidity is a rapidly worsening curse in India. The swift descent of the elderly in India (60 years+) into non-communicable diseases (NCDs e.g. cardiovascular diseases, cancer, chronic respiratory diseases and diabetes) could have disastrous consequences in terms of impoverishment of families, excess mortality, lowering of investment and consequent deceleration of growth

Credit: Neeta Lal/IPS

NEW DELHI, Aug 21 2018 (IPS) – Old age morbidity is a rapidly worsening curse in India. The swift descent of the elderly in India (60 years+) into non-commu…

A New Spectre is Haunting Europe

Roberto Savio is founder of IPS Inter Press Service and President Emeritus

ROME, Jan 17 2019 (IPS) – After Theresa May’s defeat in the British parliament it is clear that a new spectre is haunting Europe. It is no longer the spectre of communism, which opens Marx’s Manifesto of 1848; it is the spectre of the failure of neoliberal globalisation, which reigned uncontested following the fall of the Berlin Wall, until the financial crisis of 2009.
Roberto Savio

Roberto Savio

In 2008, governments spent the astounding amount of 62 trillion dollars to save the financial system, and close to that amount in 2009 (see Britannica Book of the Year, 2017), According to a US Federal…

Egypt’s Food Challenge: a Good Effort but Not Enough

A bakery shop in Cairo, Egypt. Egyptian flatbread, known as Aish baladi or country bread is on the table of all Egyptians, even the poorest, thanks to a smartcard system that assigns certain quantities to each family to avoid unnecessary waste.

CAIRO, Apr 18 2019 (IPS) – “Unfortunately the overall nutritional panorama of Egypt does not look well,” says Dr. Sara Diana Garduno Diaz, an expert concentrating on nutrition and biology at the American University of the Middle East. Diaz’s research focuses on dietary patterns and ethnic-associated risk factors for metabolic syndrome.

“While traditionally a country known for its lavish and welcoming food patterns, the…