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Sunday, October 25, 2026
News and Views from the Global South
MEDIA-PAKISTAN: TV Talk Shows Take to the Streets – Literally
The question on the TV talk show was simple. Celebrity anchor Hamid Mir asks guests from various political parties if they are prepared to participate in a general election under emergency rule. As the cameras roll, the guests squirm uncomfortably in their seats and make non-committal noises.
ENVIRONMENT: 'Flush Out the Toilet From the Water-Cycle'
The one message that came across at the just concluded general assembly of the World Toilet Association (WTA) was that conventional flush toilets are not only environment unfriendly but are also a serious public health hazard.HEALTH: Toilet Association Needs Women on Top Seats
It was a happy day for Sim Jae-Duck. "The World Toilet Association (WTA) history has begun,’’ said the president of the newly formed association at the close, Friday, of the four-day assembly in which it was formally established.
HEALTH: Talking About a Toilet Revolution
The rhythmic beat at the inaugural conference of the World Toilet Association seemed to roll away cultural taboos surrounding the act of defecation.PAKISTAN: Constitution Under the Jackboot Yet Again
Pakistan has seen several coups and military dictators in the 60 years of its existence, but President Gen. Pervez Musharraf will go down in history as the man who staged a coup against his own government.PAKISTAN: Media Muffled Under Musharraf’s Emergency
"I have the habit of saying what I have to and will continue to do so," Syed Talat Hussain, anchor of a popular current affairs programme on Aaj TV, says in an interview from Islamabad.SOUTH ASIA: Youth Demand Sex Education in Schools
Sahinaz Khatun, who is preparing for her school finals in a village in West Bengal state, has for the last two years kept condoms (and birth control pills) at her home and thinks nothing of discussing subjects like menstruation hygiene and masturbation with other adolescents.RIGHTS-ASIA: 'Fundamentalism Plays Out on Women's Bodies'
They twisted it, turned it and tore it apart, but the term ‘religious fundamentalism’ defied definition. But they were certain that it worked against women’s rights.POPULATION-ASIA: Gendercide at Apocalyptic Levels – Experts
Experts at the 4th Asia Pacific Conference on Reproductive and Sexual Health and Rights are painting an apocalyptical vision of the Asian region where 163 million women are ‘missing’ and the sex ratio continues to decline as a result of easy access to modern gender selection techniques.MEDIA-PAKISTAN: New Musharraf Term Less Liberal?
Journalists are divided on whether attacks on the media will cease, against the backdrop of what looks like another five-year presidential term for Gen Pervez Musharraf.ENVIRONMENT-PAKISTAN: Pay-Toilets? When the Walls Are Free?
At a pay-and-use toilet at Karachi’s Civil Hospital, Rustom Ali asserts: "I’m an employee here so why should I pay?" Hari Ram, the 60-year-old caretaker, is too meek to argue and lets Ali in. "Very few people pay," Ram mutters.HEALTH-PAKISTAN: Poor Worse Off After Selling Kidneys
"The only time I’ve been to Rawalpindi was in 2004 when I was taken by an ‘agent’ (middleman in the human organ trade) to a hospital there to sell my kidney," says Faqir Masih, 23. He never wants to visit the city, again.
HEALTH-PAKISTAN: 'Organ Transplant Law Won't Stop Kidney Trade'
Few in Pakistan believe that a presidential ordinance, passed earlier this month, regulating organ transplantation will stop a flourishing but gruesome trade in human kidneys.DEVELOPMENT-PAKISTAN: For Village Women an Indoor Latrine Is Heaven
For as long as Hatal Bibi, 50, can remember, women in her village, Ahmed Khaskheli, 250 km east of this port city, in Sindh province’s Sanghar district, spent hours fetching water from a canal four km away and used an enclosed communal patch to relieve themselves.HEALTH-ASIA: HIV, AIDS Take on A Woman's Face
The feminisation of HIV and AIDS continues in full swing in the Asia-Pacific, reflected in the fact that almost 40 percent of new HIV cases are among women, even if the newest estimates show that there are fewer people than originally estimated to be living with the virus in the region.
HEALTH-ASIA: When Hearth Is No Longer Her Home
To Princey Mangalika from Sri Lanka, AIDS has come to mean hatred, hunger, humiliation and death.HEALTH-PAKISTAN: Drug Addicts Routinely Denied Anti-HIV Medicines
''I’ve been running temperature for the past 25 days and lost about five kg in the last one month... just feel so weak every day,'' says Mohammad Sohail, 28, who tested HIV positive a little more than a year ago. His CD4 count is 152.PAKISTAN: Looking to Women to Preserve the Peace
''The idea is to ensure that a May 12 never happens again,'' said Nasir Aslam Zahid, former judge and one of the members of the Women’s Commission for Peace (WCP) formed in time for Tuesday when Pakistan celebrates its 60th year of independence.PAKISTAN: Devastating Floods Fail To Move Media
"Media is not interested in human suffering where the process of death is slow," lashes out Sadiqa Salahuddin, director of the Indus Resource Centre, a non-governmental organisation (NGO), working in the flood-affected area of Sindh, in Pakistan.PAKISTAN: Uncontrolled Population Blamed for Climate Change
When it comes to climate change population matters, particularly for countries in South Asia, Africa and some Arab countries, says Prof. Khalid Rashid. A mathematician and physicist in Pakistan, he has long been studying the phenomenon of global warming and views the uncontrolled population explosion with much trepidation.PAKISTAN: The Trivial Difference Between Life and Death
As Superintendent Nusrat Hussain Mangan of Central Prison in the southern port city of Karachi spends sleepless nights trying to figure out how to raise money to save the life of one inmate, just one of 107 on his death row, there are moments of near despair.« Previous Page — Next Page »
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