BANGKOK / PENANG, Sep 20 2022 (IPS) – Economic recovery since the COVID-19 pandemic has been uneven amidst a cautious loosening of restrictions. But even at the height of the pandemic, it was business as usual for the tobacco industry.
Tobacco companies remain profitable, making in 2022 and capitalizing on the situation by promoting and selling their lethal products while convincing governments that their industry should not be penalised during the pandemic, claiming tobacco is a good investment.
This is an industry that perpetuates an annual loss of in global health costs and lost productivity, amounting to 1.8% of the world’s GDP. 14% of all deaths globally (over 8…
STOCKHOLM / ROME, Mar 19 2020 (IPS) – The human factor is intimately involved in the origin, spread, and mitigation of the Coronavirus and we cannot afford to ignore that our future existence depends on compassion and cooperation. Response matters!
Some quarantined Italians might recall Giovanni Boccaccio´s The Decameron from 1353 in which people escaping the plague are secluded in a villa where they tell stories to each other. Boccaccio introduced his collection of short stories with an eyewitness account of horrifying human suffering in Florence, which in 1348 was struck by a ”pestilence” that every day ”grew in strength” while it swept relentlessly on fr…