Global Connections

It’s high season for politics. Yes, we are back to balancing campaign trail accusations with attack ads, as well as parsing the meanings of sound bites and polls. It would seem as though not much is actually happening in Washington, but that’s not completely true. Despite the rhetoric, there is some action on Capitol Hill – and it’s not a battle over taxes, it’s about treaties. For the historians, between 1946 and 1999, the United States completed nearly 16,000 international agreements.
READ MORE

The story of indoor air pollution, the silent killer in the homes of almost half the world’s population, is complex: from the environmental degradation, wasted time, and safety risks associated with fuel collection; to the significant health impacts caused by cooking over open fire; to the gases from burned coal and biomass that contribute to climate change – the effects of cooking on traditional cookstoves and open fires present a multilayered issue.
READ MORE

As over 10,000 of the world’s greatest athletes convene in London for the 2012 Olympic Games, three truly stand out. It is not their athletic ability, their hours in training, or their love of competition that makes their stories unique —though certainly they shine in those categories, too. Rather, it is their triumphs in rising from histories of war and conflict to represent their nations with pride. As these athletes prepare to march in Friday’s Opening Ceremonies, we are reminded of how their countries arrived at this day.
READ MORE

Imagine a life where you live on less than two dollars a day. You have been saving for months to afford a trip to the health clinic. With your payment in hand, you walk three hours to get to the nearest clinic, carrying your young children with you. When you finally arrive, you want to be able to receive information and testing for HIV and also pick up contraception to prevent pregnancy, but you’re told that the clinic does not provide both services.
READ MORE

Over the span of three decades, humanity has witnessed the rise of one of the world’s deadliest diseases, and also launched one of history’s greatest global attacks. Just 30 years ago, AIDS was barely uttered in newspapers anywhere around the globe, let alone becoming a household term. Twenty years ago, AIDS became the number one cause of death for U.S. men ages 25 to 44.
READ MORE

Florence Daka is a healthy mother of four who lives in Lusaka, Zambia. She sees her children off to school every morning and works a full day cleaning offices. That may not sound extraordinary, but it is. It’s extraordinary because Florence is alive and well and living with HIV, thanks to the effective treatment that she takes.
READ MORE