No end in sight to conflict in Ethiopia’s Tigray region as rebels reject negotiations
Ethiopia’s national army’s offensive launched on Monday has focused on rebel positions in Amhara, where government officials say half a million people have been uprooted in recent months. Aid agencies were already struggling to reach parts of the region, particularly those under rebel occupation. Although rebels said their forces are...
Ethiopia launches fresh attacks against Tigray rebels as malnutrition and starvation kill dozens
Ethiopia’s government has launched a new offensive against rebel forces from the blockaded Tigray region, where malnutrition and starvation deaths are rising while UN officials coordinating the humanitarian response have been deported from the country. Major air and ground operations against rebel positions in the neighbouring Amhara region reportedly commenced...
Dignity therapy: Why dying patients crave dignity, not ‘rest in eternal peace’ when it’s all over
In the mid-1990s, psychiatrist Harvey Max Chochinov and his colleagues were researching depression and anxiety in patients approaching the end of their lives when they became curious about this question: Why do some dying people wish for death and contemplate suicide while others, burdened with similar symptoms, experience serenity and...
Afghanistan’s aid-dependent economy strains under donor funding freezes, currency shortages
Hunger is rising in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, and the clearest sign may be who’s now struggling to afford food: the educated, urban, and middle-class. Weeks after the Taliban’s mid-August takeover, Afghanistan’s aid-dependent economy is straining under donor funding freezes and currency shortages. Food and commodity prices are soaring, work and income...
Why Hollywood stars don’t want to shower: ‘Maybe in the end, it is more about others than it is about us’
Showering wasn’t really a thing in 18th-century France. There weren’t showers, for one. Clean water was scarce. To contemporary sensibilities, the pre-revolutionary French probably could have used at least a rinse. Especially since public sanitation was rudimentary and the streets held sewage runoff. In Patrick Süskind’s 1985 historical novel Perfume,...
‘CIA officers play high-stakes game to accomplish their mission of uncovering and speaking the truth’
Two long-running spy thriller series, Brad Thor’s Scot Harvath and Daniel Silva’s Gabriel Allon, topped the New York Times Bestseller list during back-to-back weeks in August. The second season of the Jack Ryan series, tracking the adventures of the eponymous CIA analyst, was reportedly one of Amazon’s most popular shows...
Should the world use number of children a woman has at 50 years to foretell population growth?
The International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) team has done its study on population growth quite differently. Instead of basing its model on fertility rates, and how they would change, the group used a variable called completed cohort fertility at 50 years (CC50). This counts the number of children...
Demographers say Covid will slow down fertility in richer nations, fertility surge in poor countries
Predictions of population in both the near and long-term future typically come down to estimates of how quickly fertility will change. And that means demographers have to make some educated guesses about how people will behave as their circumstances alter. In high-income countries, these behavioural changes are usually driven by...
With fertility rates thinning in developing world, bitter disputes now dominate global population forecasts
The 1980s were a puzzling time for would-be parents in Singapore. The government initially told them to “Stop-at-Two” and backed up the policy with a series of measures to deter couples from having three or more children. It increased hospital fees for the delivery of third babies and withdrew maternity...
Human right: You can’t have a life of dignity, freedom and equality without environmental standard
As the impact of our species on the natural world intensifies, so does the knowledge of our dependency on it: from crop-pollinating critters and wild fish populations that nourish millions, to ecosystems that inhale carbon emissions and filter air and water. These connections have bolstered a legal argument around the...
