Customary landowners in the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea, both rainforest nations in the Southwest Pacific Islands, are suffering the environmental and social impacts of illegal logging. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS

SYDNEY, Dec 1 2014 (IPS) – Rampant unsustainable logging in the southwest Pacific Island states of Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands, where the majority of land is covered in tropical rainforest, is worsening hardship, human insecurity and conflict in rural communities.

Paul Pavol, a customary landowner in Pomio District, East New Britain, an island province off the northeast coast of the Papua New Guinean mainland, told IPS that loggi…

Dr. Palitha Kohona, Sri Lanka’s Permanent Representative to the U.N., is co-chair of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Biological Diversity Beyond Areas of National Jurisdiction (BBNJ), along with Dr Liesbeth Lijnzaad of the Netherlands.

An unknown medusa-like plankton viewed from a submersible in the Gulf of Mexico, as part of the NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration’s Operation Deep Scope 2005. With the increase in the research into and exploitation of marine genetic resources, more and more patents on them are being filed annually.
Credit: Dr. Mikhail Matz/public domain

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 29 2015 (IPS) – After almost 10 years of often frustrating negotiat…

Women in Pakistan fare worse than all their neighbours in terms of resilience to climate change. Credit: Ali Mansoor/IPS

KARACHI, Mar 17 2015 (IPS) – When a group of women in the remote village of Sadhuraks in Pakistan’s Thar Desert, some 800 km from the port city of Karachi, were asked if they would want to be born a woman in their next life, the answer from each was a resounding ‘no’.

They have every reason to be unhappy with their gender, mostly because of the unequal division of labour between men and women in this vast and arid region that forms a natural boundary between India and Pakistan.

“South Asian countries need to realise the tremendous …

NAIROBI, May 2 2015 (IPS) – She is just 14, but Janida avoids eye contact with others, preferring to look down at the ground and nodding her head if someone tries to engage her in conversation.

Janida (not her real name) was once a sociable and playful child, but that was before she was sexually abused by her stepfather and giving birth to a baby who is now four months old.

Her days marked by trauma and depression, Janida is just one of many girl children in Kenya who have been abused and robbed of their childhood, leaving them emotionally scarred.

“The little girl [Janida] underwent both physical and mental torture,” Teresa Omondi, Deputy Executive Director and Head of Programmes at the Federation of Women Lawyers (FIDA) Kenya, told IPS. ”Her best option …

Feast or famine: Just three years ago, flooding in Trinidad’s capital of Port of Spain left residents little choice but to wade through the deluge. But lately drought has become a problem in the dry season. Credit: Peter Richards/IPS

PORT OF SPAIN, Jun 23 2015 (IPS) – Starting in 1999, the Water and Sewerage Authority (WASA) of Trinidad and Tobago began a 10-year effort to map the country’s water quality. They started to notice a worryin…

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 12 2015 (IPS) – With the rainy season still far from over, flood-affected communities in the Sagaing Region and other parts of northern and western Myanmar are preparing for more hardships, while the government continues what the United Nations has called an “incredible” relief effort.

In a released on Aug. 12 upon her return from the Kale Township in Sagaing, U.N. Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Myanmar Renata Dessallien referred to the people in this Southeast Asian nation of 53 million as being among “the most generous in the world”, adding she was “humbled by the spontaneous public outpouring of solidarity and assistance to flood-affected communities.”

Everyone from ordinary citizen volunteers and residents to NGO workers and…

Women being examined by female doctors in free medical camp held in North Waziristan, one of the seven districts of FATA. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS

PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Nov 26 2015 (IPS) – “My two sons were killed by Taliban militants mercilessly three years ago. My husband died a natural death two year back. Now, I am begging to raise my two grandsons,” Gul Pari, 50, told IPS.

Pari, who is waiting for her turn at a psychiatrist’s clinic in Peshawar, the capital of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, says she dreamed every night that her sons were alive and would return one day.

“I am waiting for them. They are martyrs and will come and take revenge from their …

Assistant Professor, Department of Regional Water Studies, TERI University

TERI University, New Delhi, India, Apr 20 2016 (IPS) – An Indian Govt. Parliamentary Committee on Estimates on “Occurrence of High Arsenic (As) content in Groundwater” in December, 2014 stated that more than 70 million people in 96 districts in India is under threat due to As occurrence in groundwater.

Chander Kumar Singh

A new finding suggests that it’s not only Indo-Gangetic plain that is under serious threat of As contamination in groundwater in India. An ongoing study funded by PEER Science grant from USAID and National Academy of Sciences, USA in collabora…

Young women in Sub-Saharan Africa are more than twice as likely to become HIV positive as young men. Credit: Nastasya Tay/IPS

UNITED NATIONS, Jun 2 2016 (IPS) – When Lebogang Brenda Motsumi was 16  years old she fell pregnant, terrified about what her life would look like, she went to a backdoor clinic for an abortion.

The abortion failed, and she gave birth to a baby who later passed on.

Motsumi knew that she needed to be more careful so she went to a health clinic to get contraception and learn about prevention.

“Instead of supporting me the nurse interrogated me about why I was having sex, this discouraged me from ever goi…

Women wait to immunize their children at the Kisugu Health Centre in Kampala, Uganda, where free vaccinations take place. The nurse in the foreground is Betty Makakeeto. Credit: Amy Fallon/IPS

KAMPALA, Jun 29 2016 (IPS) – Patience*, a Ugandan maid, planned on taking her three-year-old son for polio immunization during the country’s mass campaigns a year ago, until her landlord’s wife told her a shocking myth.

“The medicine they are injecting them with means the boy whe…