News headlines in 2019, page 26

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Oct 08 (IPS) - Two decades into the 21st century, all too many people still associate being ‘overweight' with prosperity, health and wellbeing, mainly because being thin has long been associated with being emaciated due to hunger, undernourishment and malnutrition.

Overweight and obesity can easily be assessed by anthropometric measures, including the body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference. But BMI thresholds for overweight and obesity may differ by ethnic group or country.

UNITED NATIONS, Oct 08 (IPS) - New York's diplomatic community has continued to be enriched by a record number of women Permanent Representatives (PRUNs)—50 in all, as of October 2 – compared with about 15 to 20 back in the 1980s and early 1990s.

INCHEON, South Korea, Oct 08 (IPS) - Good news: the graph depicting climate investments has been steadily increasing. Climbing from the 2012 figure of $360 billion in climate investments across the world to close to $600 billion currently.

UNITED NATIONS, Oct 08 (IPS) - Movie star Cate Blanchett and businessman Richard Branson spoke up this week for the millions of people around the world who cannot get passports and other papers because they lack an official nationality.

GENEVA, Oct 07 (IPS) - After more than a decade of women's rights activism, Iran's Guardian Council has finally approved an amendment that would grant Iranian citizenship to the children of Iranian women married to foreign men.

NEW DELHI, India and JONESBORO, US, Oct 07 (IPS) - China's almost meteoric transition from a being a low income to a middle income country within a span of four decades is often perceived as a miracle analogous to the post Second World War Japanese economic development experience.

China's GDP rose from $200 current United States dollars (US$ henceforth) in 1978 to $9,470 current US$ in 2018 (World Development Indicators, The World Bank). Unsurprisingly, China's rapid and near sustainable growth has attracted widespread interest among academics and policy makers alike.

ABUJA, Oct 07 (IPS) - As a Public Health Doctor, I often meet people who experience stigma simply because they live with HIV. One person who still haunts me is a woman who is HIV positive and when she was in labor, a midwife would not help her. Instead she shouted at her to just push out the baby and then she stood far away from the bedside, disgusted by the woman's HIV status.  No one should go through such stigma at a vulnerable situation when they are about to birth life.

BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe, Oct 07 (IPS) - As a result of climate change, resource extraction industries in Africa will be impacted by asset stranding, researchers say.

ROME, Oct 07 (IPS) - Human rights movement Amnesty International has accused South Sudanese authorities for lack of independence as they have allowed allowing human rights abuses, war crimes and crimes against humanity to go unpunished.

ROME, Oct 07 (IPS) - It is very likely that the idea of impeaching Donald Trump will be a boomerang. Trump fans are listening to a furious campaign which smacks of coup d'etat and call his accusers traitors who deserve to go to jail.