Schadenfreude: noun : a feeling of enjoyment that comes from seeing or hearing about the troubles of other people In recent times, the world has witnessed quite the dramatic increase in climate-related natural disasters in the global West. The Amazon rainforest, once one of the world’s largest and most important carbon sinks, now produces more...
It’s 2021 and we live in a world of lab-grown meat and UberEATS. It seems that mankind has finally conquered hunger and food insecurity doesn’t it?. Appearances, however, can be deceiving. Look beyond the facade of human development and advancement, and you will find that the world still suffers from hunger and acute food insecurity....
The growing economic inequality in the world is something that can no longer be denied. It seems as the world moves forwards, the gap between the rich and the poor increases in leaps and bounds. Among industrial nations, the United States is by far the most top-heavy, with much a greater share of national wealth...
Ghana is a country in West Africa which spans the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean. It is home to a variety of ethnic groups and is also the beautiful nation that gifted us all the vibrant Kente cloth. West Africa produces about 70% of the world’s cocoa and Ghana is responsible for at...
In April 2021, the world was rocked by the death of Sarah Everard. Sarah Everard, a 33-year-old marketing executive, left a friend’s home in the Clapham neighborhood of London at 9 p.m. on March 3 to make her way back to her apartment in nearby Brixton. The walk should have taken her 50 minutes. She...
According to the CDC, obesity is one of the world’s most dangerous health conditions. As COVID-19 ravages the world, fat people are more likely to contract the virus and are also more likely to end up in the ICU. Weight and obesity-related ailments and diseases is second only to smoking as the most preventable cause...
As a Filipino, I find it very hard to write about the ethics of hiring domestic workers and household help. This type of work has been very much embedded in the Filipino culture and psyche, so much so that it is considered “invisible“. You know it is there – my family had household help as...
Just the sight of the vast blue ocean gets us high. The urge to plunge in is impossible to resist. We hit the water, feet first but it isn’t enough. We dip our bodies in and soak in the coolness. We are in deep. We are in love. Our relationship with water didn’t start at...
Teenage pregnancy is a worldwide issue, but in the Philippines, it is viewed as a national social emergency. According to the United Nations Population Fund the Philippines has one of the highest teenage pregnancy rates among the ASEAN member states. An average of 64,000 teenage girls, age 18 and below, give birth every year with...
The 2013 Dhaka garment factory collapse, killing more than 1,100 workers and injuring 2,600 more, is the clothing industry’s worst ever industrial incident. It is not just the body count, though, that made the collapse of the Rana Plaza, a nine-story building in the Bangladeshi industrial city of Savar (near Dhaka), capture global attention (briefly)...
According to the United Nations, by 2050, two-thirds of the world will not have access to water. One in three people still do not have access to clean water and it is estimated that about 842,000 deaths per year is attributable to unsafe water supply, sanitation and hygiene, with 361,000 deaths of them occurring in...
According to NASA, 70% of the world’s surface is covered in water. Even though this seems to be a lot, it turns out that it isn’t enough because of all that water, only 2.5% is freshwater and fit for human consumption. With the combined challenges of climate change and population growth, it is clear that...