TRADE-CHINA: Safety Complaints Force Beijing to Tighten Quality Control

Antoaneta Bezlova

BEIJING, Aug 1 2007 (IPS) – Dogged by a plethora of reports in the foreign media highlighting problem Chinese goods and worried that product-safety recalls are spiralling into a major problem for its export juggernaut, Beijing has shifted gear to defend its battered Made in China reputation.
Reluctant to acknowledge the problem when it first came to light several months ago, Chinese authorities are now daily rounding up companies suspected of faulty products.

The safety crackdown on domestic producers has been accompanied by a public relations campaign, aimed at international traders.

The Chinese government pays great attention to addressing flaws in product quality, especially the quality of food products, Li Changjing, an official with the…

Q&A: “Transparency Helps Ensure Donors’ Promises Are Met”

Cléo Fatoorehchi interviews DR. MARIE-PAULE KIENY, WHO Assistant Director-General

UNITED NATIONS, Dec 22 2010 (IPS) – This past September, world leaders meeting at the United Nations vowed to spend $40 billion over the next five years to save the lives of more than 16 million women and children dying of deadly diseases or lack of medical care, particularly during and after pregnancy.
Dr. Marie-Paule Kieny Credit:

Dr. Marie-Paule Kieny Credit:

Known as the Global Strategy for Women s and Children s Health, it involves commitments from 35 governments, 15 charitable institutions, seven U.N. agencies, 13 private corporations and mo…

HEALTH: ‘Lifestyle Diseases’ Cause Two-Thirds of Deaths

Kester Kenn Klomegah

MOSCOW, May 11 2011 (IPS) – Health experts from around the world have acknowledged rising numbers of lifestyle or non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in different countries, admitted inadequate funds are the biggest obstacle in health delivery, and called on the global community to consolidate efforts to effectively tackle the problem.
The health, socioeconomic and developmental costs are immense. More than nine million people die prematurely in their productive years before the age of 60. Healthcare costs are spiralling, says Ala Alwan, assistant director-general of World Health Organizations (WHO s) Non-communicable Disease and Mental Health Cluster. The time to act has come.

Jessica Brinton, a representative from the Center for Global Developmen…

What Can Be Done for Victims Still Fighting for Survival?

Apr 24 2016 – Three years have elapsed since the collapse of Rana Plaza, Savar, on a fine morning of April 24, 2013. The disaster, one of the deadliest in the world s industrial history in two centuries, claimed the lives of 1,135 men and women and injured another 2,500, nearly 200 of whom severe enough to keep them hospitalised for months.

Photo: rahul-talukder

Photo: rahul-talukder

In the months following the accident, we, along with other colleagues, surveyed many such survivors with serious injuries. The victims were in the prime of their lives, their mean age being only 26. Two thirds were female and they were much younger than their male counterparts. Over…

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.

COVID-19 in Africa: Fewer Cases So Far, and More Preparation Needed

Coronavirus in Africa: Currently, Africa has very few cases of COVID-19 compared with most other parts of the world. The highest number of cases has been reported in Egypt (currently 126 cases). It remains unclear why this is so. But the trend has generated several kinds of reactions, such as doubts around the slow spread despite the weak health systems in most of the countries, and some attributing the low spread to a low level of urbanisation

Mar 19 2020 (IPS) – The novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, recently declared a by the World Health Organisation, has taken the world by surprise. The good news is that tremendous scientific and technological advances have p…

A Global Crisis Like No Other Needs a Global Response Like No Other

 

• Truly global. Pandemics don’t respect borders, neither do the economic shocks they cause.

Credit: IMF

The is dire. We expect global economic activity to decline on a scale we have not seen since the Great Depression.

This year 170 countries will see income per capita go down – only months ago we were projecting 160 economies to register positive per capita income growth.

Actions taken

Exceptional times call for exceptional action. In many ways, there has been a ‘response like no other’ from the IMF’s membership.

Governments all over the world have taken unprecedented action to fight the pandemic—to save lives, to…