A young woman in Nepal has died in a fire after being banished from her home under Chhaupadi, a practice that considers menstruating women ‘impure’. Amongst other things, this belief forces women to leave home and stay in inadequate huts for the duration of their menstruation cycle, despite the fact
In recent weeks, the political crisis in Venezuela has deepened following a series of events stemming from Maduro’s inauguration in January, and National Assembly President Juan Guaido’s self-declaration as interim president of the country several days later, after many, both in the country and in the international community, refused to
Thailand is set to pass a new cybersecurity law which will give a government agency power to seize computers and electronic devices and search all data. This raises fears that freedom of expression on the internet and data security will be further restricted and controlled, just two months before long-awaited
The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo has continued to worsen with new fears the disease could spread to Goma, a major town of around one million people and “major transportation hub” that connects the DRC to Rwanda, according to Peter Salama, head of the Health Emergencies Program
Alarming new research has found that the Earth’s oceans are warming at a far higher rate than thought, an average of 40 percent faster than a United Nations panel estimated five years ago. Ocean temperatures have been consistently rising since the 1950s, absorbing more than 90% of the greenhouse gases
Hungarians have once again taken to the streets in their thousands in the country’s capital Budapest, to protest against the new so-called “slave law” by the government, which would allow employers to ask their employees to work up to 400 overtime hours every year. The protests began a week ago
After a long and arduous process, the Irish Parliament’s upper house has voted to repeal the country’s ban on abortion. The landmark decision will allow all women unrestricted access to abortion within the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. In cases of fatal fetal abnormalities and serious risks to a woman’s life,
A recent report published in the public health journal The Lancet has revealed the extent to which climate change impacts on global health: it predicted devastating health effects on those in both high and low GDP countries in the future, as well as pointing to a plethora of health emergencies that
The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued a ruling on Thursday, upholding a nationwide injunction against the Trump Administration’s attempts to immediately end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. This provided a temporary win for the approximate 800,000 “Dreamers” illegally residing in the U.S,
Over the last week, severe storms have hit Italy, bringing strong winds, heavy rain and intense flooding and resulting in 29 deaths as of November 4. Venice experienced the worst flood in a decade, with at least three-quarters of the city flooded by up to 61 inches of water above
India’s Supreme Court recently struck down a law banning women from entering one of Hinduism’s holiest sites – the Sabarimala temple, in India’s southern state of Kerala. This decision quickly intensified ire and anger amongst the violent mobs of Indian men who view allowing women of menstruating age (usually defined in
The Kuwaiti government has banned 4,390 books in a four year period, in a bid to appease the country’s conservative bloc in parliament. Despite Kuwait’s push to be seen as a modern “enclave of intellectual freedom,” censorship literature is still pushed through the Ministry of Information’s twelve-member censor committee. The government’s censorship
The Nepalese government has recently banned internet pornography in a bid to reduce rape and sexual assault against women in the country. The actions were taken after nationwide protests erupted in August following the rape and murder of a 13-year old girl, putting strong pressure on the government to tighten
The number of migrant children held in U.S. government shelters has recently skyrocketed to an all-time high of 12,800, according to data obtained by the New York Times. This is despite a court order to return all detained migrant children separated under the Trump Administration’s “zero-tolerance policy” to their parents
India’s Supreme Court recently ruled that a colonial-era law that criminalized homosexuality was “irrational, indefensible, and manifestly arbitrary,” striking down the past of the law pertaining to homosexuality – thereby decriminalizing homosexuality in the second most populous country in the world – and declaring that all LGBT Indians deserved all of
Scotland has moved to provide free sanitary products to students in all schools and universities across the country, in a £5.2 million program that aims to end “period poverty,” an issue that can force those that are unable to afford sanitary products to periodically miss school, work, or social activities.
As floodwaters begin to recede and rains have lessened, Kerala faces a significant cleanup from devastating floods that wreaked havoc across the region. Considered the southern state’s worst floods in almost a century, they resulted in the deaths of 400 people and the displacement of a further 1.8 million. The
Anti-government protests in the Romanian capital Bucharest, and several other cities across the country, continued for the second consecutive day even after 400 people were injured in Friday’s first round of protests, after violent clashes between peaceful protesters and riot police, who fired tear gas, pepper spray, and a water
Only seven months into the year, August 1 has already marked ‘Earth Overshoot Day’ for the planet – the earliest date since 1969, when human consumption of the Earth’s natural resources first outstripped the planet’s ability to create those resources in a single year – drawing attention to how we
India has moved one step closer to decriminalizing homosexuality after the Supreme Court began a hearing challenging the colonial-era law that, among others things, prohibits consensual sexual relations between men, and following on the heels of an August 2017 ruling that declared all people have a “constitutional right to privacy”
