LILONGWE & VIENTIANE, May 7 (IPS) – For decades, pesticides have been a quiet pillar of Malawi’s agriculture, guarding crops against pests, improving yields, and sustaining millions of livelihoods. But beneath this success story lay a troubling reality: weak regulation, unsafe handling practices, and growing threats to human health and the environment.
DOHA, Qatar, May 7 (IPS) – In 2024, 273 million children, adolescents, and youth were out of school globally as per the UNESCO Institute for Statistics. While that is a staggering number, the figure is incomplete. The 2026 Global Education Monitoring report warns that the global out of school population may be undercounted by at least 13 million once humanitarian sources are used to correct data gaps in conflict-affected contexts.
Read the full story, “Data Gaps are Hiding the Most Excluded Children”, on globalissues.org →
URBANA, Illinois, US, May 6 (IPS) – A newly published review in Nature Reviews Earth & Environment has revealed disturbing statistics on the growing environmental threats posed by global food production. The global food system, designed to feed and nourish humanity, is now a major contributor to climate change via greenhouse gas emissions, and the largest driver of freshwater depletion, biodiversity loss, and nutrient pollution.
ROME, May 6 (IPS) – Across Europe, winter wheat is already in the ground. What farmers apply in the coming weeks will determine the size of this year’s harvest. Those decisions are now being made under a sudden surge in costs that did not exist when seeds went in.
Read the full story, “Keep Inputs Moving to Keep Food Affordable”, on globalissues.org →
SRINAGAR, India, May 6 (IPS) – The First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels in Santa Marta, Colombia, may eventually be remembered as a defining moment in global climate politics, not because it produced a treaty or a formal negotiation outcome, but because it changed the tone, structure, and ambition of the conversation itself.
HERAT, Afghanistan, May 5 (IPS) – Qadoos Khatibi, an Afghan university lecturer, and Fayaz Ghori, a civil society activist, also from Afghanistan, were detained by the Taliban’s Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. Their crime? Advocating for girls’ right to education.
PORTLAND, USA, May 5 (IPS) – Throughout human history, reaching the age of 100 was considered an exceptional accomplishment. However, in recent decades, the number of centenarians in the world has been on the rise.
Read the full story, “The Rise of Centenarians: A Challenging Accomplishment”, on globalissues.org →
UNITED NATIONS, May 5 (IPS) – Africa is on the frontlines of the climate crisis, warming faster than the global average and facing disproportionate climate impacts, despite contributing the least to global greenhouse gas emissions.
BRUSSELS, Belgium, May 4 (IPS) – In January, the government of Algeria succeeded in locking two civil society groups out of access to the United Nations (UN). It raised questions at the UN Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations, known as the NGO Committee, about two civil society groups with accreditation. It alleged that Italian organisation Il Cenacolo was making politically motivated statements at the UN Human Rights Council and the Geneva-based International Committee for the Respect and Implementation of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (CIRAC) was selling UN grounds passes. Four days later, it called a vote to revoke their status. Other states urged delay, but the no-action motion failed, and 11 of the body’s 19 members voted to recommend that the UN’s Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) revoke Il Cenacolo’s accreditation and suspend CIRAC’s for a year.
SUVA, Fiji, May 4 (IPS) – For generations, Pacific people have understood the ocean not as a resource but as identity, sustenance, and survival. Today, that relationship is being tested in ways science is only just beginning to fully capture.
