ABUJA, Jan 22 (IPS) - Dealing with COVID-19-related city lockdowns has been exceptionally stressful, particularly for those parents who have had to balance work, personal life, children and elderly, providing home schooling or facilitating virtual learning, managing infection control within the home, and more, all while being disconnected from support services.

ACCRA, Jan 22 (IPS) - Education Cannot Wait (ECW) - the first global fund dedicated to education in emergencies and protracted crises – was on the ground in Burkina Faso last week with its Director, Yasmine Sherif, to launch a new multi-year programme that aims to provide an education to over 800,000 children and adolescents in crisis-affected areas.

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 22 (IPS) - 152 million children are subjected to child labour. Nobel Peace Laureate Kailash Satyarthi has brought together former child workers, international organisations, global youth, business and education leaders for a global campaign to save the.

Selimatha Salifu of Ghana is a former child labourer who has vowed to do her part to bring attention to the plight of the world’s over 150 million child labourers. Raised in a fishing community, she recalls her days buying fish to sell, working from daybreak till nightfall to contribute to her family. She credits the General Agriculture Workers Union for rescuing her and ensuring she enrolled in school.

STOCKHOLM, Jan 22 (IPS) - Ambassador Jan Eliasson is Chair of the Governing Board of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) and Dan Smith is Director, SIPRIA deadly pandemic to control. An urgent nationwide vaccination programme to roll out. An economic crisis to navigate. Political divisions and distrust deep enough to spark mob violence and terrorism.

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 22 (IPS) - A war-mongering president, with his finger on the nuclear trigger--- and who threatened to attack North Korea and Iran-- was unceremoniously drummed out of office on January 20.

PRAGUE, Czech Republic, Jan 21 (IPS) - Alyn Ware is Peace and Disarmament program Director for the World Future Council and Right Livelihood Laureate in 2009. Many of us around the world breathed a sigh of relief yesterday (Jan 20) as the ‘nuclear football’ (the briefcase with nuclear weapons codes and communication links for the President to launch a nuclear attack) was passed from Mr Trump to President Biden, as the new president was inaugurated.

SYDNEY, Jan 21 (IPS) - Impeachment or no impeachment, Trump is out of the White House. Trump goes with an approval rating of 34%, far behind his predecessor Barack Obama’s 60%. A majority, 54%, said Trump ought to be removed from office before January 20, according to a new CNN poll, for his role in the January 6 events, when Trump incited his supporters to storm the US Capitol.

URBANA, Illinois, Jan 21 (IPS) - On the first day, hours after inauguration of the new Biden-Harris administration, President Biden signed an Executive Order-rejoining the United States in the Paris Climate Accord.

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 21 (IPS) - The COVID-19 Pandemic has affected every sector of society and a global assessment by the United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF) confirms that its shocks have extended to forests on every region on earth. Impact severity varies across the Regions; Latin America and the Caribbean, Western Europe and other states, North America, Eastern Europe, Africa and Asia-Pacific, but they range from an increase in illegal harvesting of forest products to loss of critical funding for forest protection agencies.

MIAMI, Jan 21 (IPS) - What for Donald Trump was an insult, for Joe Biden is an acknowledgment: the new president of the United States is the establishment in its purest form. No other similar case is remembered of having reached the presidency with a better preparation. For almost half a century he has been "inside the beltway." It is the sector occupied by the District of Columbia, which claims to be recognized as a state, surrounded by a huge highway. Biden would be perfectly accepted as a traffic guard, without passing the exam.