FREETOWN, Sierra Leone – For nearly two years, Sierra Leone’s Safe Motherhood and Reproductive Health Care Bill has been stuck in a political and social tug-of-war that has little to do with the technical business of passing a health law. Instead, the country is wrestling with who gets to define reproductive health in the country: […] Continue reading ->
A major leadership shake-up is rocking the WHO, with two assistant directors-general, Dr Jeremy Farrar and Dr Yukiko Nakatani, leaving the organisation in quick succession. For now, Dr Bruce Aylward will take over Farrar’s role while Dr Sylvie Briand will step in for Nakatani. Moreover, following allegations of corruption against Saima Wazed, the regional director […] Continue reading ->
Twice in three years – at its 75th anniversary and again this July at the Constitution’s 80th – the World Health Oganization (WHO) has told the official story of what it has achieved. Twice, water, sanitation, air, chemicals and climate have been left out. The former head of WHO’s environmental health programme argues this is […] Continue reading ->
The United States has assumed the secretariat of the Geneva Consensus Declaration (GCD), a global anti-abortion initiative launched by Donald Trump’s administration weeks before he was voted out of office in 2020. Hungary took over the secretariat after Trump was voted out, but the US rejoined the initiative in January 2025, a week after Trump […] Continue reading ->
France’s planned youth social media ban for minors under the age of 15 violates fundamental rights, the country’s Constitutional Council ruled on Friday. Critics had warned of a predictable legal defeat following a rushed legislative process. French President Emmanuel Macron announced a revision of the flagship legislation by spring 2027. The European Commission is also […] Continue reading ->
Twenty-five democracies managed to examine their COVID pandemics without smashing their national crockery. The United States produced a partisan committee and a pre-emptive pardon that silenced the one man who could explain to millions of angry, confused Americans why they suffered so badly. But in his final martyrdom, Anthony Fauci may have done the rest […] Continue reading ->
When 175 countries unanimously voted in Nairobi in March 2022 to negotiate a legally binding treaty to end plastic pollution, the move was hailed as the most significant step in global environmental negotiations since the Paris climate accord. Now, a year to the day after two weeks of talks and a 24-hour final negotiating marathon […] Continue reading ->
Situated on the edge of the advancing Sahara Desert, Ngouri in western Chad is one of the most vulnerable places in the world to climate change. Heat is already rising in the region as the El Niño advances globally, with hotter sea surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific Ocean driving up land temperatures and triggering […] Continue reading ->
Over 2000 people have died so far in the Ebola Bundibugyo outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and the only way to break the chains of transmission is via scaled-up local surveillance, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). “Most concerningly, we see a high proportion of deaths in communities instead of treatment […] Continue reading ->
For nearly three hours on 29 July, the US Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee heard one sentence repeated over a hundred times. “On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution.” Dr Anthony Fauci, the 85-year-old retired director of the National […] Continue reading ->