SYDNEY (IDN) — This fourth issue of Sustainable Development Observer focuses on the global health crisis that has been exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic and pharmaceutical industry’s greed—at the cost of peoples’ health. While the world’s media has gone berserk about a new “Omicron” variant of the COVID virus, the World Trade Organisation has quietly postponed a ministerial conference that had as its main agenda item, an Indian and South African initiative supported by over 100 countries to waive patents on COVID vaccines and other medical testing systems and equipment.…

By Caroline Mwanga

NEW YORK | YANGON (IDN) — By early 2022, nearly half of Myanmar’s 55 million population—some 25 million people—will be living below the national poverty line, according to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). A survey leaves no doubt that the country’s poverty headcount is likely to return to levels not seen since 2005, effectively erasing 15 years of pre-pandemic economic growth.…

By Reinhard Jacobsen

BRUSSELS (IDN) — International scientists and leaders have urged a “global response of collaboration with Africa on COVID-19 following Omicron outbreak”. Over a hundred academics and leaders from Europe, Africa, the US among others say in a joint letter to the European Commission and the World Health Organization (WHO) that they are “concerned with the lack of action for vaccination in Africa and solidarity with Africa”.…

By Kalinga Seneviratne

SYDNEY (IDN) — The European Union (EU), United Kingdom, Japan and Australia are holding the world hostage by refusing to support a waiver of COVID-19 vaccine patents for the world to recover from the pandemic. The World Trade Organization (WTO) remains at an impasse for one year.

Then, India and South Africa applied for approval of a waiver over Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) for COVID-19 vaccines so that they could produce the vaccines—especially Pfizer and Moderna’s mRNA vaccines—to help their countries as well as many developing countries to recover faster from the pandemic.…

Viewpoint By Kalinga Seneviratne

SYDNEY (IDN) — Indonesia’s popular tourism islands of Bali opened for tourism October 14, while Thailand announced that from November 1 vaccinated travellers from 19 countries will be allowed to visit the kingdom including its tourism island of Phuket. Both those countries’ tourism industry, which is a major revenue earner, has been devastated by over 18 months of inactivity that have impacted on the livelihood of hundreds of thousands of people.…

Viewpoint by Catrin Waters

The writer is a student at University of Virginia in the U.S. and a volunteer with the High Atlas Foundation, a U.S./Moroccan non-profit organization focused on sustainable development.

VIRGINIA, USA (IDN) — Before you read this, I challenge you to pause and ask your body the question: how do you like the thoughts I think about you?…

By Rachel Gisselquist

Rachel M. Gisselquist, a political scientist, is a Senior Research Fellow with the United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER) and a member of the institute’s senior management team. She works on the politics of developing countries, with particular attention to inequality, ethnic politics, state building and governance and the role of aid therein, democracy and democratization, and sub-Saharan African politics.…

Viewpoint by Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana

The writer is the United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).

BANGKOK (IDN) — The growing number and share of older persons in Asia and the Pacific represent success stories of declining fertility and increasing longevity; the result of advances in social and economic development.…