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For today’s final Humanosphere podcast, we’re going to talk about ourselves – why we do what we do, what are some of our favorite stories and where we go from here. Due to lack of funding, we must now take a break.
On 1st July, Humanosphere is taking a break – possibly never to return. Since 2010, they have been reporting daily on global health, aid and development issues for both mainstream and ‘insider’ audiences. Humanosphere’s hibernation matters because they are one of a desperately small number of news organizations regularly producing original, informed coverage of these important international topics.
Ahead of the G20 summit of world leaders next week in Hamburg, Germany, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) announced that only one country deserves to be on its tax haven blacklist: Trinidad and Tobago. Tax reform advocates have condemned this as a farce
U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley declared victory after member nations agreed to a $600 million cut from the annual peacekeeping budget. Neglected in her Twitter declaration is that the cuts had already been planned, prior to Trump’s election. The UN peacekeeping budget declined from $7.87 billion to $7.3 billion with the U.S. contributing a smaller percentage as compared to last year.
Unmitigated climate change will make much of the United States poorer and generally exacerbate rising wealth inequalities, according to a new study. For every one degree Celsius rise in global temperatures, the study projects that the country will lose about 1.2 percent of its Gross Domestic Product. The economic impact of climate change will not be uniform, say the researchers in this week’s Science magazine, with a few regions possibly experiencing gains.
The Trump administation’s temporary travel and refugee ban went into effect late Thursday evening. According to the State Department cable, some family members are allowed in, but grandparents and grandchildren, fiancés, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, and cousins do not count as “bona fide” relationships.(Vox)
The World Bank has launched a global insurance fund aimed aimed at speeding up the international community’s response to pandemic disease outbreaks. The impetus for the innovative financial scheme was the 2013-2016 West Ebola outbreak that, due in part to the global community’s slow response, killed more than 11,000 people and ended up costing more than $10 billion to put down.
Nearly eight months after India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi shocked the economy by banning 86 percent of the country’s currency, business has more or less returned to usual. On the one hand, that’s a testament to the Indian economy’s resilience. On the other, it also means that Modi’s hopes of creating a cashless economy will not be immediately realized.
A new study published Wednesday by the Guttmacher Institute reports that some 214 million women, mostly in the developing world, lack access to modern methods of contraception and other reproductive services routinely available in the West.
South Sudan’s government says it may withhold permission for aid workers to go to some rebel-held areas on security grounds, the president’s spokesman said on Thursday, after the U.N. complained aid convoys were being blocked.
A World Food Program review of the global hunger situation in 2016 finds conflict emergencies in the Middle East, Africa and elsewhere are hampering United Nations efforts to achieve zero hunger by the year 2030. (VOA)
Protecting livestock can greatly improve rural communities’ ability to recover after a major disaster, relief organizations have found. “Without animals, families lose one of their main sources of income and are often left with no way to rebuild their lives,” said a veterinarian who works on such disaster prevention and recover efforts.
Hong Kong will soon mark 20 years since Britain returned the former colony to China and Chinese state media is touting the milestone by promoting the city’s greater prosperity under its “one country, two systems” strategy. But few Hong Kongers are feeling very prosperous or celebratory given that recent data has revealed the wealth gap is now the widest it’s been since the city began tracking income equality 46 years ago.