The explosive growth of artificial intelligence is siphoning off water and electricity supplies used by communities around the globe, and creating new sources of air pollution and climate emissions from additional power generation. Yet, experts and industry representatives claim that the technology holds the key to mitigating the very crises it compounds. Advanced algorithms are […] Continue reading ->
The World Health Organization (WHO) has only mobilised 37% of the funds it needs for the Eastern Mediterranean Region (EMRO) amid a “deteriorating health situation”, regional director Dr Hanan Balkhy told a media briefing on Wednesday. Welcoming the two-week ceasefire between Iran and the United States-Israel, Balkhy called for the “permanent cessation of hostilities”, warning […] Continue reading ->
Senior United Nations officials and humanitarian leaders have urged Israel to reverse plans to withhold registration from more three-dozen international NGOs providing humanitarian relief in war-torn Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank – warning that the move would severely undermine life-saving aid in a moment of acute humanitarian need. Israel said last Thursday that some […] Continue reading ->
The US Environmental Protection Agency has dismissed a recent finding that atrazine, the second most widely-used herbicide in the United States, is “probably carcinogenic to humans” by the World Health Organization’s cancer review agency.  Atrazine is used extensively in the US on crops like corn, sorghum, and sugarcane. However, over 60 countries have banned the […] Continue reading ->
The World Food Programme (WFP) is warning of a rapidly deteriorating humanitarian emergency in Sudan on Friday, with conditions in the besieged city of El Fasher in Sudan’s Darfour region described as “beyond horrific.”  Speaking at a briefing to UN reporters in Geneva, Ross Smith, WFP’s Director of Emergency Preparedness, said “anywhere between 70 and […] Continue reading ->
The post-pandemic decline in infection-prevention practices, along with the broader crash in global health finance, are undermining progress against antimicrobial resistance –  one of the planet’s most urgent health threats. At a recent panel discussion co-hosted by the Geneva Health Forum (GHF), leading experts from WHO, academia, biotech, and patient advocacy warned that national AMR plans […] Continue reading ->
SRINAGAR, INDIA – When record-breaking rains, landslides and cloudbursts lashed northern India in late August — across Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab and Himachal Pradesh — highways turned into rivers, homes collapsed and death tolls mounted. But beneath the visible destruction lies a quieter emergency: public health systems buckling under the strain. In Kashmir, the Jhelum […] Continue reading ->