Population

RIO DE JANEIRO

Official Bullying Lurks Behind Prep for Olympics in Brazil

By Fabiola Ortiz
As Brazil prepares to host several sporting mega-events, human rights abuses and authoritarian interventions by the authorities are going on behind the scenes, favouring major urbanisation projects and stadium remodelling, a study says.

South Asia in Search of Coordinated Climate Policy

By Amantha Perera
With a combined population of over 1.7 billion, which includes some of the world’s poorest but also a sizeable middle class with a growing spending capacity, South Asia is a policymaker’s nightmare.

Mexican Communities Sue Pemex for Environmental Justice

By Emilio Godoy
Fed up with oil spills from facilities belonging to Mexico’s state oil company Pemex, residents of two communities in the southeastern state of Tabasco are taking the country’s largest company to court in a bid for compensation for damage to the environment and agriculture.

U.S. Retailers Holding Out on Bangladesh Safety Agreement

By Katelyn Fossett
Labour groups here are stepping up pressure on U.S. firms to sign a binding building safety agreement for Bangladeshi factories after 10 major European garment companies signed onto the landmark agreement.

Indigenous Nicaraguans Fight to the Death for Their Last Forest

By José Adán Silva
Mayangna indigenous communities in northern Nicaragua are caught up in a life-and-death battle to defend their ancestral territory in the Bosawas Biosphere Reserve from the destruction wrought by invading settlers and illegal logging.

Dengue Outbreak Highlights Poor Waste Management

By Catherine Wilson
City and health authorities in the Solomon Islands, located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, are calling for effective and consistent urban waste management as they battle to control a serious outbreak of dengue fever, the world’s fastest spreading vector-borne viral disease, which was identified in the country in February.

Young Men Break with Machista Stereotypes in Ecuador

By Leisa Sánchez
At the age of 20, Damián Valencia speaks knowledgeably about every aspect of gender equality. He is a member of Cascos Rosa, a young people's initiative working for cultural change against machismo and violence against women in Ecuador.

Giving Paraplegic Women a New Lease on Life

By Ashfaq Yusufzai
Gul Shada thought it was the end of the road for her when she and her husband met with a road accident last year in the Nowshera district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, one of the four provinces of Pakistan. Not only did the mishap leave Shada widowed at the relatively young age of 37, she also sustained an injury to her back that immobilised her.

Doctors in Argentina Sound the Alert on Vaccine Sceptics

By Marcela Valente
Argentina is one of the countries in Latin America with the highest levels of vaccination coverage. But experts are concerned about the growing campaign by vaccine critics against immunisation.

Women’s Rights Still Denied in Latin America

By Emilio Godoy
Latin American states are still failing to provide guarantees for women's educational, sexual and reproductive rights, according to activists from different regions of the world meeting in the Mexican capital.

Cuba Knows Condom Use Not Enough

By Ivet González
“But I always used a condom!” was the sentence that played over and over in Jaime Roche’s mind when the young Cuban man tested positive for HIV in October.

Still Homeless, Two Decades Later

By Amantha Perera
The camp should not have been difficult to find. We were told to drive straight on the road that leads north away from the town of Puttalam, 140 kilometres from Sri Lanka’s capital Colombo, and we would come upon the settlement of internally displaced people.

Skilled Midwives May be the Key to Healthy Babies

By Joan Erakit
The story goes like this: a young mother lies quietly in a dimly lit room having just given birth to her baby. For the next seven days she watches over the child with caution, nursing and swaddling it patiently. Fearful that the infant will not survive past a few days, she refuses to give it a name.

Climate Change Adaptation: A Race Against Time

By Naimul Haq
Adaptation and mitigation. Identified by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and by scientists as the two major responses to address the problem, these were also the twin preoccupations of a climate change conference held recently in Dhaka.

Migrant Children Struggle to Learn

By Simba Shani Kamaria Russeau
In the hustle and bustle of Thailand’s capital, Bangkok, a small learning centre located in the Bang Bon district is helping children hailing mostly from the war-torn provinces of Myanmar (Burma) gain access to a basic education.
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