News headlines in 2020, page 5

NEW ORLEANS, US, Dec 11 (IPS) - When I contracted Ebola virus disease in August 2014 while working as a medical doctor in a well-known private hospital in Lagos, Nigeria, I was denied access to a potential cure.

NEW YORK, Dec 11 (IPS) - The current pandemic is probably the first global event in the history of the human race. By ‘global’ I mean it has affected almost everybodyregardless of country of residence or social class.

STOCKHOLM / ROME, Dec 11 (IPS) - COVID-19 has in some nations been converted into a noxious, political issue. One of many worrying examples is the rhetoric of Brazil´s president.

UNITED NATIONS, Dec 11 (IPS) - “Vaccinating the world against COVID-19 will be one of the largest mass undertakings in human history, and we will need to move as quickly as the vaccines can be produced,” says Henrietta Fore, UNICEF Executive Director.

There is a longstanding belief that virtually everything in this world is stacked up against the poor and the downtrodden.

The Covid-19 vaccine is no exception because some of world’s richest nations, including the US, Canada and UK, seem to have cornered most of the supplies -- whilst marginalizing the world’s poorer nations.

BANGKOK, Thailand, Dec 10 (IPS) - The Pacific Island Developing State of Vanuatu has emerged as one of the region’s great success stories. Vanuatu has joined the ranks of Samoa and the Maldives as one of only six countries to graduate from being a least developed country, since the category was introduced by the United Nations in 1971.

BUENOS AIRES, Dec 10 (IPS) - The unprecedented growth of renewable energies in Argentina over the last three years has borne its greatest fruit: the Cauchari solar park, with nearly one million photovoltaic panels and 300 MW of installed power, which was connected to the national power grid on Sept. 26.

JAKARTA, Dec 10 (IPS) - When his friends prodded him to use an agricultural app in July, rice farmer Mustafa reluctantly downloaded RiTx Bertani into his smart phone. Four months later, he feels happy to have given the technology a try.

PARIS, Dec 10 (IPS) - On Human Rights Day, civil society calls for the protection of civic space as a fundamental freedom, as more than 80% of the world’s population live in countries where civic space is closed, repressed or obstructed.

NEW YORK, Dec 10 (IPS) - The COVID-19 pandemic is NOT the biggest pandemic the world confronts at the moment, despite over 69 million cases and 1.5 million deaths worldwide.¹ If it’s not COVID, what is it then? It is violence against women!

NAIROBI, Kenya, Dec 09 (IPS) - On 10 December every year, we celebrate Human Rights Day, marking the anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Universal Declaration guarantees a spectrum of human rights that belong to each of us equally, and unite us as a global community and upholds our humanity.