Year: 2018

United States (Conversation) – ‘Tis the season to eat chocolate. And for the chocolate industry, there’s nothing sweeter, since this is the time of year when it enjoys a spike in sales and, at least for some, rising profits. Globally, chocolate and its source, cocoa, are in a moment of dynamism and change. In some cases it’s for the worse, as the industry faces the realities of climate change. Other changes, however, are for the better, as cocoa producers, chocolate makers, researchers and even retailers offer creative new ways to…

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World Wide (WWF) – 2018 has been a big year for conservation. Here are just nine of our highlights. Great news! There are now over 1,000 mountain gorillas in the wild. This is a 25% increase since 2010 and one of our many WWF success stories of 2018! Serranía de Chiribiquete National Park in Colombia became the largest tropical rainforest park on the planet! WWF’s Living Planet Report 2018 reported that the world has lost around half of its shallow water coral reefs. Our campaigning helped persuade Belize to ban…

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Macedonia (GV) – On December 17th, sex workers, strippers, hotline operators and human rights activists from Macedonia held the 11th annual “Red Umbrella March” in Skopje to mark the International Day to Stop Violence Against Sex Workers. The International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers is observed on December 17 by sex workers, their advocates, friends, families, and allies. The day calls attention to hate crimes committed against sex workers worldwide, as well as the need to remove the social stigma and discrimination that have contributed to violence against sex workers and indifference from the communities they are…

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Canada (Conversation) – Indigenous women are murdered, go missing or face abuse at much higher rates than non-Indigenous women in Canada. Recent news stories now report that birthing mothers have also been sterilized (given tubal ligations) without their full and informed consent, as recently as 2017. These shocking stories describe women being told that they cannot see their newborn babies until they undergo a sexual sterilization surgery. And they describe situations in which women who are in the midst of delivering a child are asked questions about wanting more children,…

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United States (Conversation) – Since the beginning of Donald Trump’s presidency, mental health professionals have come forth in historically unprecedented ways to warn against entrusting the U.S. presidency to someone who exhibits what we have called his “dangerous” signs. The observed signs have included “grandiosity, impulsivity, hypersensitivity to slights or criticism, and an apparent inability to distinguish between fantasy and reality.” As a psychiatrist and expert on violence, I worked with my colleagues to put our observations into a book, “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental…

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United States (Conversation) – When a woman I’ll call Elisa and her 15-year-old daughter, Ana, journeyed from their home in Honduras to Tijuana, Mexico, they survived due to the generosity of a friend who gave them bus tickets, strangers they met aboard the bus headed north and a temporary Mexican humanitarian visa. Once they arrived, they stayed in a shelter at a local church whose congregation provided food, toiletries and free health care. Elisa also helped others, by cooking, cleaning the shelter’s common areas and caring for another sick resident….

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(Conversation) – Whether you’re a morning person or love burning the midnight oil, we’re all controlled by so-called “body clocks.” These body clocks (which regulate your circadian rhythms) are inside almost every cell in the body and control when we feel awake and tired during a 24-hour period. But as it turns out, our latest study found that our body clocks have a much bigger impact on us than we previously realised. In fact, our body clocks actually effect how well a person performs on both mental and physical tasks….

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United States (Conversation) – The immediate and most visible impact of a shutdown is in the government’s day-to-day operations. Some departments and offices, like the Internal Revenue Service, would be closed, and nonessential federal employees across the government would stay home. But beyond the individual workers and families affected, could a short or lengthy shutdown affect the broader U.S. economy as well? Constantine Yannelis, a business professor at New York University, and I examined data from the 2013 government shutdown to better understand its impact. An economic speed bump While…

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United States (Conversation) – At least 138 government officials, in both elected and appointed positions, have been publicly reported for sexual harassment, assault, misconduct or violence against women since the 2016 election, according to an analysis my colleagues and I conducted. Three in every four of these officials have left or been ousted from their positions. But as many as 33 will remain in office by January. Our study of those accused, posted online on Nov. 9, tallied reports of allegations of sex-related misconduct by government officials in the media…

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India (Conversation) – Hoping to protect women from sexual exploitation, Indian lawmakers are pushing a bill that amends the criminal code to harden legal and financial penalties for sex trafficking. The “Trafficking of Persons (Prevention, Protection and Rehabilitation) Bill,” which passed the lower house of India’s parliament in July 2018 and may become law in 2019, seeks to make combat this lucrative, illicit trade. Not everyone thinks harsh deterrence will work. Days after it passed in the lower house of India’s Parliament in July, two United Nations experts said the…

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