Health and Population

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It Happened at the UN: Week Ending May 16

This Week @UN: Israel “weaponizes” aid in Gaza; a merger of 2 UN agencies?; reining in killer robots. Plus: Tough talk on UN80 reforms; peacekeeping ministerial in Berlin; Yemen calm; Syrians return home; Colombians fighting again. Please follow us on …

Injured girl in Gaza

War Surgery Is Not Peace Surgery: An American Doctor in Gaza

Dr. Feroze Sidhwa is a 42-year-old critical care and trauma surgeon based at San Joaquin General Hospital, a level-two trauma center, in San Joaquin County, California. He arrived in southern Gaza in March, carrying thousands of rolls of paper tape, …

Charting a New Global Course for Dealing With Illicit Drug Use

This year’s meeting of the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs in Vienna marked a significant shift in policy when it agreed to focus on drug use as a public health issue that required an approach of harm reduction. This …

Gaza Is Cleaning Up Its Piles of Garbage From the War, Including Human Waste

Bombs, bullets and the suffocating weight of bodies trapped under slabs of fallen concrete where houses once stood are just a few reasons the death toll in Gaza is still soaring. But recently, contaminated water paired with an overwhelmed sanitation …

Women in Shefajo Hospital in Kabul Afghanistan.

In Afghanistan, Women Are Dying on the Way to the Hospital or Inside It

In the Taliban’s Afghanistan, it’s not uncommon for three women to share a hospital bed. Nor is it rare for premature babies to share incubators. This occurs in the most developed city, the capital of Kabul, and all over the …

With Russia’s Grip on UN Vienna Weakening, a Different Debate on Drug Policies Is Possible

For decades the United States, the primary architect of international drug control policy, led the global fight against illicit drugs, exercising its influence through the Vienna-based Commission on Narcotic Drugs, a governing body that provides guidance to the United Nations …

Vassily Nebenzia, Russian Ambassador to the UN

A Better Way to Detect the Origins of a Pandemic

The war in Ukraine has caused severe disruptions to regional and global security, including raising concerns about the potential use of unconventional weapons. Not least of these concerns is the dangerous Russian disinformation campaign alleging biological weapons development in Ukraine, …

Windfall Tax on Covid Profits Could Ease ‘Catastrophic’ Food Crisis, Oxfam Says

Food, fossil fuel and pharmaceutical companies that have enjoyed bumper profits in the Covid-19 pandemic and its aftermath should be hit with a swingeing windfall tax on their excess income, the global head of Oxfam has said. A windfall tax …

Adrienne Germain greets Ishita Chaudhry

Remembering Adrienne Germain, Pioneer of Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights

Adrienne Germain, who helped shape international development and women’s rights for more than four decades, died on May 19, 2022, at her home in Oakland, Calif. She was 75 years old. Her passionate advocacy on behalf of the sexual and …
Ukrainians fleeing their country as Russia's bombardments rage on

Counting Ukraine’s Dead, Wounded, Refugees and Displaced So Far

Ukraine’s population data are rapidly changing as the war rages in its country since Russia began its aerial, ground and sea assaults late last week. Within 24 hours of issuing its first report, the UN Refugee Agency documented that 368,000 …

UN’s Guterres Strikes Back; Kenya Pilots the Security Council; a Promising Malaria Vaccine

A new vaccine for malaria; the Security Council goes to the Sahel; the Human Rights Council’s actions, criticized and praised. You are reading This Week @UN, summarizing the most pressing issues facing the organization. The information is gathered from UN …

From Tiny Barbados, a Scolding to the World: ‘We Have Not Moved the Needle!’

The fourth day of the United Nations General Assembly debate soldiered on, with pointed speeches by, among others, the Caribbean island nation of Barbados, whose prime minister, Mia Amor Mottley, asked the General Assembly Hall, “How many crises and natural …

At the UN, Boris Johnson Tries to Rally Forces for the Climate Change Event in November

If you have understandably faded from the UNGA76 gathering by now, here are highlights for Day 3 of global leaders’ speeches, held on Sept. 23. We’ve also included Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s late-night remarks on Sept. 22 in the General …

Photo of In Cambodian officials checking enforcement of WHO's International Code of Marketing Breast-Milk Substitutes,

How Infant-Formula Makers Feed Off Fears of Covid

As just about every expert agrees, breast milk beats formula on every score, from the health of the baby to out-of-pocket costs. But that hasn’t stopped formula makers from pushing their products, cutting deeply into breastfeeding rates around the world. …

Natalia Kanem UNFPA

Women Will Achieve Equality, No Matter What: Natalia Kanem of UNFPA Explains

For Natalia Kanem, the executive director of the United Nations Population Fund since 2017, the last couple of years have been a wild ride. In 2020, women the world over were getting ready to celebrate important anniversaries: 25 years since …

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