:
CIVICUS discusses the challenges posed by Paraguay’s ‘anti-NGO law’ with Hugo González, executive director of the Paraguayan Network of LGBTQ+ Artists (REPAR+), a civil society organisation (CSO) that promotes the rights of LGBTQI+ people, which has joined the constitutional challenge against this law.
NAIROBI, August 13 (IPS) – Women’s rights advocates, judges and lawyers have launched a coordinated campaign to reform family laws that discriminate against women and girls in Africa.
DHAKA, Bangladesh, August 13 (IPS) – Dhaka’s recent and recurrent flooding is often treated as a natural disaster, but rain is only the trigger. The deeper causes are political, planning and ecological failure: wetland loss, canal encroachment, unplanned growth, weak enforcement, fragmented institutions and short-term engineering fixes. Dhaka is not drowning because it rains; it is drowning because it has been built as if water had nowhere to go.
Read the full story, “Why Dhaka Floods Every Monsoon”, on globalissues.org →
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, August 12 (IPS) – On 19 July, the 47th anniversary of the Sandinista revolution that first brought him to power, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega declared that his country would hold ‘no more elections’ so that the opposition could never again try to ‘seize power’. Just like that, he scrapped a presidential vote that had previously been pushed back to 2027, abandoning even the fiction of democratic legitimacy. The move changes little in practice, since no free vote had been possible for years. But it’s still revealing: a government that controls the army, the courts, the electoral machinery and the police, and will still not risk even a stage-managed ballot, is one that has lost confidence in its people.
Read the full story, “Nicaragua: End of the Electoral Illusion”, on globalissues.org →
ALEPPO, Syria, August 11 (IPS) – The abuse 30-year-old Nour Al-Badawi experienced in an Aleppo public hospital while giving birth resulted in her having two major follow-up operations and left her with depression and anxiety.
Read the full story, “Obstetric Violence: Syrian Women Speak Out”, on globalissues.org →
UNITED NATIONS, August 11 (IPS) – “Mainly, people tell me they’re exhausted. They’re exhausted from being poor, from being hungry, from repeated climate shocks, mounting debt, and the daily struggle to provide for their families,” Olga Cherevko, Spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Afghanistan, told UN reporters on August 4.
VICTORIA, Seychelles, August 10 (IPS) – I have spent my life on an island. From the granite hills of Mahé, one can watch the sun rise over an ocean that has fed, protected and defined the Seychellois people for centuries.
PORTLAND, USA, August 10 (IPS) – Upon reaching the age of 80, men and women are living longer than ever before. These gains in longevity among octogenarians represent a remarkable demographic achievement. The additional years of life provide new opportunities for older adults and their families while also presenting important social, economic, and healthcare challenges for societies.
Read the full story, “Living Longer at Age 80”, on globalissues.org →
FREETOWN, August 10 (IPS) – Growing up, Peter George, a young innovator in Bo District in Southern Region, Sierra Leone, watched people dump electronic waste near the farmland where his grandmother cultivated crops.
As climate change reshapes Indigenous territories across Brazil, a new generation is turning to culture and digital platforms to defend their lands and their future.
Read the full story, “For Brazil’s Indigenous youth, visibility is resistance”, on globalissues.org →
