Adaptation to Climate Change: Need for a Human Rights Approach

The memories of Cyclone Sidr and Aila are fresh in the mind of Razia Begum, a victim of climate change, of Dacope Upazila, Khulna. The standing field crops and houses of her community were destroyed, and they suffered the loss of cattle as well as people who perished in these natural disasters. She says mournfully that Saturkhali, Kamarkhola, Koilashganj and Baniashanta are the most vulnerable unions where access to necessary human rights is disrupted. Furthermore, salinity, flood, river erosion, heavy rain, cyclone, water logging and seasonal variations etc. are the most devastating impacts of climate change in those areas.

Let’s Improve Our Global Ranking on Impunity

After my remarks on impunity last week, a friend brought to my attention a disturbing study on Impunity (via InterAksyon), showing that among 59 countries, the Philippines led in the Global Impunity Index.

Iran: Children at the Gallows

As Iran currently executes the highest number of juvenile offenders in the world, hundreds of Iranian minors helplessly watch their childhoods pass them by as they await their fatal ends behind bars.

Youth Key to the Success of the SDGs in Kenya

Consider this: in 1956 Sweden and Kenya’s population was roughly at 7 million. Today Sweden has about 9.8 million, while there are about 44 million Kenyans. Fertility levels are declining gradually and Kenyans are living longer. It is estimated that there will be 85 million people in Kenya by 2050, with three quarters of these being below 35 years. While Kenya’s median age is 19, Sweden’s is 42.

Youth Employment: Turning Workplace Partnerships into Opportunity

Many of us can remember the difficulties of getting our first job – the searching, the frustration of rejection, the nervous wait for an interview or the first day of work. Today’s staggering unemployment rates in many countries make it an especially difficult time for young job-seekers.

Women’s Inclusion in Sports Competes in Rio Games

At the age of 14, Kaillana de Oliveira of Brazil knows she won’t be as tall as most professional basketball players, because of family genetics. But she is not letting that get in the way of her dream of standing out in the sport.

War on Climate Terror (II): Fleeing Disasters, Escaping Drought, Migrating

"No one can deny the terrible similarities between those running from the threat of guns and those fleeing creeping desertification, water shortages, floods and hurricanes.”

Expansionary fiscal consolidation myth

The debt crisis in Europe continues to drag on. Drastic measures to cut government debts and deficits, including by replacing democratically elected governments with ‘technocrats’, have only made things worse. The more recent drastic expenditure cuts in Europe to quickly reduce public finance deficits have not only adversely impacted the lives of millions as unemployment soared. The actions also seem to have killed the goose that lay the golden egg of economic growth, resulting in a ‘low growth’ debt trap.

Rickshaw Painting in Digital Age

With the advent of the digital printing press, Riskshaw painting a previously well known art form is on the verge of extinction. Many painters had to switch their profession to survive the "digital revolution".

False Promises: Avoid ‘Miracle’ Rice and Just Eat a Carrot

Norman Borlaug, father of the Green Revolution, died on September 9, 2009. Alfred G. Gilman died on December 23, 2015. Both were Nobel laureates and now both dead. Gilman was a signatory to a recent letter condemning Greenpeace and its opposition to genetic engineering.

The Wild Cards

The Rio Olympics began with the signature fanfare that accompanies the Games every four years. However, unlike every year, the nature and size of the spectacle, the synchronised dancers, over-the-top fireworks and the millions spent brought a new set of disappointments with them.

History and Society in the Shaping of Terrorism Today

Among the anxieties, fears and confusions generated by the grisly tragedy that occurred on July 1 at the Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka, one refrain was fairly consistent – how could some young men, presumably from relatively affluent and educated families, not only become radicalised but also engage in the horrific, detached, surreal brutality through which they killed their victims. The sheer wickedness of some young men repeatedly, deliberately, cold-heartedly hacking, stabbing and decapitating people to death, left us traumatized. How COULD they? Their brutality became the story, and our response reflected the worldwide horror and disgust at the tactics used by terrorists of their particular ilk.

The UN Steps up Efforts to End Child Marriage

Barely 17 years old and from the Gajapati district in Odisha, India, Susmita has never gone to school. She rears the few animals her family owns, and this is her primary duty besides attending to household chores.

Kenya’s Health Sector Challenges Present the Ideal Setting for Creating Shared Value

The increased budgetary allocations to the health sector by county governments point to an acknowledgement not only of the enormous challenges facing the sector, but also of good health as a prerequisite to overall development.

Don’t Bash the Games

There have been few moments in my life as memorable as competing in the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. The chance to represent my country was a distinct honor, as was being part of the community of the Olympics — an event with the rare power to unite the world in the common spirit of competition and athletic excellence.

Turkey’s Syria Headache

Five years into the 'oust Assad' campaign, Turkey finds itself isolated in the region and beyond. After a narrow escape from a failed coup attempt, President Erdogan may finally be rethinking his Syria policy. Because the arming of rebels that included hard-line Islamists has not only contributed to the killing of some 280,000 innocents, it also brought upon Turkey the problem of millions of cross-border refugees and failed to put a dent against the Kurdish Workers' Party, i.e. PKK. The overly ambitious foreign policy of the Turkish government where Erdogan found himself at odds with Egypt, Libya and of course Syria, has done little to raise his profile in the region. That the Syrian engagement is a foolhardy experiment where the rebels cannot bring down Assad is now all the more evident with Russia's entry into the conflict.

An Unequal Country

One of the world’s great achievements of the past decades has been the significant fall in global poverty. Between 1990 and 2012, the proportion of humanity living under $1.90 a day fell from 37 per cent to only 13pc, driven in large part by the efforts of China. South Asia also witnessed a major decline in poverty, from 51pc to 19pc, with unequal progress across countries.

Native Plants Boost Local Diets in El Salvador

Juana Morales is cooking one of the most popular dishes in El Salvador: pupusas, corn tortillas with different fillings. But hers are unique: they are not made with the traditional corn tortillas, but use Maya nuts, a highly nutritional seed that has fallen out of use but whose consumption is being encouraged in rural communities.

War on Climate Terror (I): Deserts Bury Two Thirds of African Lands

Two-thirds of the African continent is already desert or dry-lands. But while this vast extension of the second largest continent on Earth after Asia is “vital” for agriculture and food production, nearly three-fourths of it is estimated to be degraded to varying degrees.

Education: An Elusive Dream for Cameroon’s Indigenous Peoples

It is a sunny afternoon in Boui, a small village in the Boumba and Ngoko Division of Cameroon’s South East Region. A primary school teacher is drawing some wild animals on the blackboard. Then she turns to the class of fifteen pupils.

Indian Jails Slammed as Purgatory for the Poor

A media frenzy ensued in New Delhi last month when a popular television channel highlighted the horrific living conditions of women inmates in ward number six of Tihar Jail, South Asia's largest prison.