The Human Consciousness Now...Our World in the Midst of Becoming...to What? Observe, contemplate Now.
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 8 2026 (IPS) - The demand for critical minerals is accelerating as world powers scramble to stay on top of emerging technologies. Meanwhile, the environment and frontline communities are paying a steep price.
Such was the basis of the discussion held by the Oakland Institute on September 30, during their webinar: ‘How War and AI Fuel the Critical Minerals Race‘. The event convened experts and frontline activists to examine how artificial intelligence (AI) drives mineral extraction, transforms war technologies, and affects communities entrenched in protracted conflict.
Building on the Institute’s July report, RUSH: Global Scramble for Minerals Wages War on People and Planet, the event highlighted the correlation between rising military spending and the proliferation of AI systems. Panelists stressed that as the demand for critical minerals reaches new peaks, frontline communities bear the brunt of adverse environmental and social impacts.
Anuradha Mittal, founder and Executive Director of the Oakland Institute, noted that military operations account for less than 10 percent of total critical mineral use. Despite this, she warned that the global AI “boom” and increasing competition between world powers over strategic supply chains could trigger a sharp rise in extraction.
Expanding data centers will demand increasingly higher quantities of critical minerals, including copper, gallium, indium, palladium, magnesium, tungsten, germanium, and tantalum. Mittal projected that by 2030, data centers could require an additional 512,000 tons of copper, alongside a 37 percent increase in germanium and an 85 percent increase in gallium by 2033.
She highlighted the United States military-industrial complex as a specific area of concern, describing it as an “AI-first warfighting force.” Under the Trump administration’s proposed 2027 defense budget, military spending would reach a record high of 1.5 trillion USD, nearly twice that of 2023. As the U.S. races to counter China’s dominance across global supply chains, extraction, and processing, the Trump administration has enacted rapid measures to secure minerals internationally.
“Since 2025, the (Trump) administration claims to have signed 38 mineral agreements with countries ranging from Ukraine, India, the DRC, the Philippines, UAE, Australia, Argentina, and Saudi Arabia…Competition with China is bolstering this strategy,” said Mittal. “The Department of War has allocated 75 billion USD to AI-driven programs and another 9 billion to data centers, while the Pentagon requested 13.4 billion dollars in 2026 for autonomous systems. This has driven the U.S. to start stockpiling minerals as strategic assets.”
Other panelists detailed how the impacts of the critical minerals race extend far beyond the global scramble for resources. Frontline communities are not only subjected to environmental degradation, but those in conflict zones are routinely exploited by tech and defense corporations as testing sites for novel military technologies before they are introduced to global markets.
Leila, representing the U.S.-based and Palestinian-led advocacy group Adalah Justice Project (AJP), warned that Gaza has served as an “enormous blueprint for AI-powered war,” noting that Israeli companies have historically used the enclave to test emerging technologies relating to surveillance.
“We have facial recognition drones, different kinds of spyware companies that can hack into phones, and all kinds of AI-assisted targeting programs that, of course, we really learned about through the last couple of years in the genocide,” said Leila. “These tools were developed and tested by Israeli companies in real time, and then sold to the world as sort of ‘battle-proven.’”
Leila also stressed the urgency of the Deadly Merger, a legislative proposal in the U.S. National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to expand the integration of the U.S. and Israel’s military technology, intelligence, and surveillance systems. AJP posits that the Merger could intensify violence against Palestinians, drive heightened surveillance in the U.S., and impose a “new techno-fascist world order.”
Katerina Canyon, Executive Director of Peace Economy Project—a non-profit organization that advocates for the redirection of military spending toward human needs—introduced the concept of a “peace economy”, where critical resources are used to strengthen healthcare and social infrastructure rather than fund military operations.
Canyon stated that rare earths, lithium, cobalt, nickel, graphite, and other critical minerals are not only necessities for the proliferation of AI but also are cornerstone resources for the green energy transition. She emphasized that a peace economy must prioritize an equitable environment for civilians over military defensives.
“For nearly fifty years, our organization has challenged militarism and asked what would happen if public resources were directed toward human needs rather than preparation for war,” said Canyon. “My core argument is simple: critical minerals are not politically neutral. The same mineral can become part of a wind turbine, an electric bus, a medical device, or a missile guidance system. Geology does not make that distinction; policy does, government budgets do, procurement decisions do, and industrial strategy does.”
“So the real question is not simply whether we need critical minerals; it is what kind of economy are we building around them,” she continued. “A peace economy starts with a different definition of security. One centered on whether people have safe communities, have healthcare, clean energy, transportation, housing, and a livable environment.”
IPS UN Bureau Report
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 8 2026 (IPS) - The seven candidates, still in the running for the post of UN Secretary-General (SG), have so far faced a barrage of questions, mostly from delegates and the news media.
But some of the more politically-sensitive and heavily-loaded questions, have been avoided — either intentionally or by accident– primarily because the answers could trigger a veto from the P-5.
Do you subscribe to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) policies at the UN? If so, will you help implement this policy, which excludes gender empowerment, and is strongly advocated by the Trump administration?
The US has dismissed climate change as a “hoax”. Where do you stand on global warming and climate change? Any reaction to the US view?
As Secretary-General, what will be your leadership philosophy?
The ICC has determined that the Israeli Prime minister is a war criminal and is accused of committing genocide in Gaza. Do you agree? If not, what are your thoughts?
Do you consider Taiwan an integral part of the People’s Republic of China (PRC)? And, as Secretary-General, will you initiate negotiations to prevent a possible new military conflict in the region?
Is the Russian invasion of Ukraine a violation of the UN charter? And is Russia responsible for war crimes in Ukraine?
Thomas G. Weiss, Presidential Professor Emeritus, Political Science, Director Emeritus, Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies, the CUNY Graduate Center, told Inter Press Service (IPS) the absence of probing questions from governments is easier to understand than from journalists who should be shedding light on and exposing the relative degree of spinelessness in candidates.
“The last two SGs demonstrate that what passes for acceptable among the P5 is not what the UN requires. The planet requires boldness and a willingness to speak truth to power. Alas, what gets a candidate elected and what is required are two different things,’ he pointed out.
Mandeep S. Tiwana, Secretary-General CIVICUS, a global alliance of civil society organizations (CSOs) and activists, told IPS practically speaking, in order to successfully navigate the present political minefield, it could be considered wise for candidates to steer clear of questions they deem contentious.
But what does that say about the process for the appointment of the next Secretary General? he asked.
“The United Nations is supposed to be the conscience of the world. So, in principle answering a question on the value of diversity and equity or calling out the reality of complicity in genocide and war crimes by powerful states should not be so hard for someone who aspires to be the leader of the world body”.
Unfortunately, traditions have taken hold where senior UN officials see themselves more as bureaucrats beholden to the representatives of states – some of whom don’t even conduct free and fair elections – rather than as servants of the peoples of the world in whose name the UN was established, said Tiwana.
“The UN draws its legitimacy from its founding values. It is our hope that whoever is appointed will break the mold. Crucially, it is time for a woman to head the UN and govern it with feminist leadership values of consensus building, courage, power-sharing and radical inclusion. At the same time, they should be able to hear and feel deeply for victims of the very violations the UN was established to prevent,” declared Tiwana.
Richard Gowan, Director for Global Issues and Institutions, and a longtime UN watcher at the Brussels-based Crisis Group told IPS there is an old saying that “politicians campaign in poetry but govern in prose.”
But aspiring UN Secretaries-General don’t even get to campaign poetically. They have to tread extremely carefully to avoid offending the veto powers. This leads them to make lowest common denominator statements and avoid hard topics, he said.
“That means these races are disappointing for UN watchers and boring for journalists. However, at the end of the day the world’s top diplomat must be diplomatic, so the race is all about showing who can be most tactful not most brilliant”.
It is worth saying that even the best UN leaders did not say much that was exciting during the campaign phase. Dag Hammarskjold, U. Thant and Kofi Annan all took office without making waves.
Hammarskjold, he pointed out, was famously prone to periods of introspective silence even once he was in office. So, I don’t think that out-spokeness is necessarily a decisive criterion in this race, he declared.
Meanwhile, the seven official candidates running to succeed António Guterres as the next UN Secretary-General (starting January 1, 2027) are listed below, alongside former candidate Michelle Bachelet who withdrew from the race:
IPS UN Bureau Report
BRATISLAVA, Oct 7 2026 (IPS) - More than 60 Ukrainian organisations have issued an appeal to the World Health Organisation (WHO) to help stop the torture of Ukrainians held in Russian captivity.
Ahead of International Doctors’ Day on October 5, the groups, including the Nobel Peace Prize-winning organisation the Centre for Civil Liberties (CCL), issued an appeal to the WHO, calling on it to draw international attention to systematic violations of the right to medical care for Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs) and civilians illegally detained by Russian forces.
The appeal follows the release of a report, ‘Anatomy of Torture: Testimonies on Torture and Ill-Treatment by Medical Personnel in Russian Captivity’, by Ukrainian NGOs, including testimonies from released POWs and illegally detained civilians, which its authors say points to, among others, the systemic denial of medical care to detainees and the direct participation of medical staff in their torture and ill-treatment. In some cases this has resulted in the deaths of POWs and detained civilians.
The groups behind the appeal believe it will increase public awareness of the treatment of detained Ukrainians and put pressure on international organisations to take concrete action to stop it.
“It is important to draw attention to the fact that the denial of medical care and the involvement of medical personnel in cruel treatment are not isolated incidents but form a systemic problem. We expect international organisations not only to respond with statements but also to take concrete action,” Nataliia Yashchuk, Senior War Consequences Officer at CCL, which co-produced the Anatomy of Torture report, told IPS.
Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion more than four and a half years ago, there have been repeated reports of ill-treatment of POWs and civilians held in Russian detention facilities, including some that allege war crimes and crimes against humanity committed against detainees.
But the Anatomy of Torture report documents specifically how Ukrainians held in Russian penal institutes have been, and continue to be, victims of torture by medical staff.
Yashchuk told IPS that the group’s systematic analysis of dozens of testimonies demonstrated that these were not isolated incidents but instead a recurring pattern of behaviour by medical personnel in different detention centres, suggesting it was a systematic practice.
This is backed up by the fact that some of those who provided testimonies for the report were doctors and medics themselves and therefore especially qualified to identify the deliberate and systematic nature of the ill-treatment they suffered, its authors say.
“Our objective [with the report] was…to demonstrate the systemic nature of the problem,” Yashchuk said.
The report includes testimony from former Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs) who were subjected to torture by doctors and nurses at facilities – CCL estimates there are up to 300 locations where Ukrainians are being held – across Russian-occupied territories and Russia itself.
The abuse included not just denial of healthcare but also beatings, electric shocks, death threats from medical staff, and being forced to stand in one spot for 16 hours and being made to beg for help before being tortured again.
Sergii Doroshenko, a former paediatrician who was serving as head of an army medical unit when he was captured by Russian forces in Mariupol in spring 2022, spent 1030 days in captivity at various detention centres across Russia.
He told IPS he was held in inhumane conditions in detention centres where medical supplies or personnel were sometimes non-existent, and any request for medical help was met with refusal. At others he and any other medical personnel detained were allowed to help their own wounded, but only using whatever they could scavenge themselves, such as any bandages, tourniquets, or other materials they happened to have.
Doroshenko said that in one penal facility where only unpurified water was available to prisoners, 800 people had intestinal illnesses at the same time. He and others used stripped bark from prison grounds, which they then brewed into a drink to slow down or curb such outbreaks.
“There were episodes when people lost consciousness from dehydration and received no treatment, because there were no medicines at all,” he said.
He also describes how at another detention centre when he and others sought medical help, “instead of pills, we were treated with electric shocks …it was the treatment for everything — for toothache, for injuries from beatings, for joint pain, for fever, for coughing.”
Meanwhile, in some cases medical personnel actively participated in torture.
He said his worst experience was during his last year of captivity when he was sent to a correctional colony in the Republic of Mordovia in the Russian Federation.
“There, the doctor personally took part in the torture and was perhaps the cruellest of all the staff at that colony,” said Doroshenko. He was nicknamed “Doctor Death” because after his torture sessions, several people had to undergo surgical operations.
“There was also the deliberate withholding of medical care by medical staff. Even when they saw that we had temperatures of 39–40°C, when people had a fever and fell into a kind of intermediate state between consciousness and unconsciousness, even then, they did not permit any treatment, not even a rest from the torture.
“For example, from my own experience, I had a very high fever, and for about four or five days I sought help daily, and in response received beatings and electric shocks, but my condition was so bad that a rash covered my entire body, from my face to my heels, and afterward I had peeling, shedding skin… I never received a single pill, not a single antipyretic treatment — nothing but beatings,” said Doroshenko.
He added that Russian propaganda intentionally demonised medics, which made prisoners like him a special target for torture.
Meanwhile, his presence in captivity was officially confirmed only two and a half years after his capture. Groups like Amnesty International have pointed out that POWs have been deliberately cut off from the outside world, often for years, and a lack of transparency over their whereabouts has allowed for their torture and even unlawful killings to continue with total impunity.
“The Russian Federation only officially confirmed my presence in captivity after two and a half years. Before that, they did not officially acknowledge that I was their prisoner, meaning that if I had been killed or tortured to death somewhere, they would bear no responsibility for it,” said Doroshenko.
“Only about six months before my release did they confirm that they indeed held a certain Sergii Doroshenko in captivity, and thereafter, the frequency of torture decreased significantly, the beatings decreased significantly — they started, so to speak, to take a bit of care of us, fearing that we might die from the torture,” he added.
Other groups have also documented incidents of torture of Ukrainians by Russian medical staff.
A report released late last year by Human Rights Watch (HRW) suggested medical personnel enabled or were apparently complicit in torture, staff at the group told IPS.
Yulia Gorbunova, associate director for Ukraine at HRW, told IPS that the report’s findings and ongoing monitoring showed incidents of Ukrainian POWs being denied basic treatment and pain management at detention facilities in Russia and Russia-occupied areas of Ukraine despite suffering from severe combat wounds or after being injured during interrogations.
“From the moment of capture and throughout their detention, former POWs described medical care at every stage as inadequate, often abusive, and routinely withheld or delayed. Treatment for combat wounds, torture injuries, or contagious diseases like tuberculosis and scabies was typically restricted to basic antiseptics or mild painkillers.
“In addition, these facilities are operated under conditions that actively degrade physical health. Ukrainian detainees (POWs and civilians) endure severe overcrowding, chronic starvation, unsanitary conditions, and a lack of clean water, leading to rapid physical deterioration and untreated health issues,” she said.
Another recent report by Ukrainian NGOs included similar findings.
Russian authorities have repeatedly denied that any Ukrainian POWs or civilians it holds are subject to ill treatment or torture.
However, reporting from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine, among others, has shown that Russia has consistently refused to grant independent monitors access to POW detention sites.
This means that there are no official records of injuries and illnesses resulting from the ill-treatment and torture of detainees.
The Anatomy of Torture report includes an analysis documenting how the reported treatment of detainees by Russian medical staff is a violation of not just international rights treaties such as the Geneva Conventions but also the World Medical Association’s International Code of Medical Ethics.
When IPS contacted them, WHO officials were not available to speak about the Ukrainian organisations’ appeal.
A spokesperson for the ICRC did not comment on the specific allegations in the Anatomy of Torture report but said the group was “concerned by any reports of ill-treatment of those in captivity or detention.”
“Under international humanitarian law, all people deprived of liberty, be they combatants or civilians, must be treated humanely. Care for their life, dignity and wellbeing is paramount. The 1949 Geneva Conventions contain specific rules governing conditions of detention, including access to proper hygiene standards and medical care and treatment. In all cases, the provision of medical care must comply with the applicable standards of medical ethics,” the spokesperson said.
Meanwhile, some victims of the torture and ill-treatment recorded in the report are speaking out to help bring those responsible to justice.
When Oleksandr Savov, a Ukrainian marine who took part in the defence of Mariupol, returned to his family after almost three years in various Russian detention centres, his daughter, Anastasiia, was glad to be reunited with her father but shocked at his physical state. She knew from his almost skeletal frame that he had suffered while in captivity.
She told IPS that when he had been captured, he had no injuries nor illnesses. But when he was released, he had tuberculosis, broken ribs, chronic ulcers, and lymphoedema. He was unable to straighten one leg and doctors told him he would need a knee replacement.
He also had mental health problems, including night terrors, panic attacks during air raids, and a paralyzing fear of silence or queues.
After seeing doctors and realising the full extent of his injuries he began to think about what had happened to him and fellow captives and the fact that it was medical staff who had inflicted such suffering.
“He couldn’t understand how doctors could be so cruel to other people,” Anastasiia said.
He told her what they had done to him, including not just refusing to provide medical care when he needed it, but torture with electric shocks.
Savov died of heart failure in November last year, eight months after he was released. He was 46. After his death, doctors in Ukraine found that his heart had been damaged following a heart attack he had suffered in captivity.
He spent his final months visiting hospitals and documenting his memories in a notebook for the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Anastasiia has since founded a community for the families of captive marines and continues to speak out in support of detained defenders and returning soldiers. She has also filed a complaint with the ICC over her father’s torture.
She says that, like her father, she believes that speaking out publicly forces Russia to ease conditions for those still detained.
She also says that she wants to see the people who tortured her father and others brought before a court and held accountable for their actions.
“These medical staff are part of a system of torture in these prisons because when people ask for medical help, for instance, like when my father did, they come, and they just laughed in their faces and recorded videos of them on their phones instead of helping them,” she said.
She added it is imperative investigations into these people take place, or “this torture and ill treatment won’t end.”
This was also her father’s wish before he died.
“After he was released from captivity, my father did a lot of interviews with journalists and human rights defenders, and once he was asked whether he felt anger towards the people who had tortured him. He said that at that moment, he felt nothing about them, but he wanted the torture to stop. The thought that those kinds of things were going on at the same time he was talking to those journalists really upset him. He couldn’t understand why there was no one in the whole world who could do anything about it,” she says.
Doroshenko said people involved in the torture of Ukrainian detainees should face “something like the Nuremberg trials”.
“The conduct of the doctors, the medical staff, and even ordinary guards at these penal facilities was a deliberate violation of the Geneva Convention and a deliberate use of torture, and therefore they should be subject, as war criminals, to judicial investigation and, following that, judicial punishment in accordance with the court’s decision. These are people who have lost their humanity, who have become beasts, and who have no right to be in society. A doctor has no right to torture others,” he said.
Some doctors allegedly involved in torture of Ukrainian captives have already been identified, and earlier this year the EU sanctioned Galina Mokshanova, the head of the medical unit of Penal Colony No. 10 in Udarny, Russia, for human rights violations.
Ensuring justice and accountability is vital not just for victims and their relatives, Yashchuk said.
“This research is about documenting crimes but also the urgent need for effective international mechanisms capable of saving the lives of those who remain in captivity,” she said.
IPS UN Bureau Report
YOLA, Nigeria, Oct 7 2026 (IPS) - Following the mass abduction of 46 pupils and teachers in Oyo State, south-west Nigeria in 2026, the authorities attributed the attack to the Ansaru terrorist group. Key suspects were prosecuted and handed prison terms. But this was not the first time terrorist groups had engaged in mass abduction of school pupils in Nigeria. Peace and security researcher Saheed Babajide Owonikoko explains what factors could have motivated the Ansaru terror group to stage that attack and what lessons Nigeria should take away from the incident, which lasted 56 days.
What can Nigeria learn from the mass kidnap of school children in Oyo State?
The lessons can be deduced from the differences between the incident and others that have taken place in Nigeria.
The first striking difference is that northern Nigeria was previously the centre of kidnapping incidents in Nigeria. As of 1 June 2026, there had been 31 mass school kidnapping incidents involving over 2,530 people in Nigeria since the 2014 Chibok incidents.
Terrorists had struck before in south-western Nigeria. Also, criminal kidnappings on the highway had taken place, but not a mass school kidnapping. The Oyo State school kidnapping is the first in the southern parts of Nigeria. The lesson is that terrorism is expanding beyond the traditional areas known for activities of terrorist groups.
Another difference is that the victims included children as young as two years. Most previous Nigerian mass school abductions targeted older students.
The third is that it involved multiple schools. My contact in Ogbomosho said three schools were attacked.
This suggests the vulnerability of civilian populations and institutions in areas previously regarded as less exposed to terrorist kidnapping. The targeting of particular groups, especially schoolchildren and other populations whose abduction is likely to generate public pressure, also provides terrorists with a strategic advantage. Such attacks will be easy to execute by the group and can trigger public outrage, protests and demands for government action. They could put pressure on authorities to negotiate or make concessions.
Victims have now been “released” or “rescued”, most probably without concession to any of their demands, and some people linked to the incidents have been put on trial. But the ease with which the group carried out the attack exposes the vulnerability of the south-west and other non-traditional theatres of terrorist kidnapping to sudden attacks, particularly where security presence and response capacity remain limited.
Concentrating security in volatile areas may not be the solution, as terrorist groups will always take advantage of vulnerable areas.
What factors motivated this kidnap?
Criminal bandits and terrorists are responsible for most of the high-profile kidnapping incidents in Nigeria. However, while bandits kidnap mostly for money, terrorists mostly kidnap for more strategic reasons.
The 15 May 2026 armed attack against schools in Oriire Local Government of Oyo State, leading to the abduction of over 40 people, most of whom were pupils and teachers, was carried out by The Vanguard for the Protection of Muslims in Black Africa, popularly known as Ansaru. Since its breakaway from Boko Haram in 2013, Ansaru has acquired the trademark of being involved in high-profile kidnapping and hostage-taking, sometimes with the support of bandits.
Ansaru’s involvement in the Oyo State kidnapping was confirmed by the group’s demands. The group listed its demands as follows:
• 1 billion naira to be paid to one account in the Benin Republic • the Oyo state government should release their members from prison • Toyota Hiluxes • concession of some Oyo state laws in favour of the bandits (land and sharia law).The second item is particularly informative. In August 2025, Nuhu Ribadu, Nigeria’s national security adviser, announced the arrest of two key Ansaru leaders – Mahmud Muhammad Usman, the amir (leader) and Mahmud al-Nigeri, the deputy and chief of staff.
They are currently standing trial on terrorism charges. For a long time, Ansaru remained silent due to the leadership vacuum left as a result. Their strategic importance made the group stage the Oyo kidnapping incidents.
In one of my previous articles, I warned that, given the importance of these two leaders, they might attempt to secure their release through a prison break or resort to a high-profile kidnapping or hostage-taking operation, either in retaliation for their detention or as leverage to demand their release.
What makes the south-west vulnerable to these kinds of attacks?
The choice of Oyo State and the kidnapping of pupils are also strategic. Oyo State is vulnerable because of its proximity to the North Central and North East through savannah woodlands, wildlife reserves and riparian vegetation.
Movement from North Central and North West to the south may also be caused by low security expectations and reduced military pressure there.
A reduction in expertise due to the arrest of Mahmud Muhammad Usman and Mahmud al-Nigeri also affected Ansaru’s operational effectiveness in high-intensity security terrain, making the south more attractive.
Ansaru usually targets high-value civilians, including expatriates, well-to-do individuals and humanitarian workers. They kidnapped schoolchildren because of their vulnerability and also because it can spark public outrage that may force the government to give concessions.
Does this incident have any implications for the ongoing debate on state policing in Nigeria?
According to the government account, the rescue of the schoolchildren and their teachers was achieved through a prolonged, intelligence-led, multi-agency operation. Although the outcome shows state security institutions can mount a coordinated response, it raises questions about whether such resource-intensive operations can be sustained and replicated in similar incidents.
More fundamentally, the operation illustrates the reactive character of the response. Security agencies mobilised resources after the abduction rather than preventing the attack or detecting the threat earlier. This is where the debate over the state police is very important. One of the major problems with Nigeria’s security landscape is the centralisation of the security apparatus, leaving the federating units at the mercy of the federal government to deploy security forces.
To reduce the vulnerability of civilians everywhere in Nigeria, the police institution should be federalised. This will ensure that a minimum level of protection exists for everyone, wherever they live in Nigeria.
Saheed Babajide Owonikoko is Researcher, Centre for Peace and Security Studies, Modibbo Adama University of Technology
This story was originally published by The Conversation.
IPS UN Bureau
PORTLAND, USA, Oct 6 2026 (IPS) - Dementia is a rapidly growing global health challenge that affects many millions of people worldwide and places significant economic, healthcare, and social strains on societies, particularly as populations age.
Families, community organizations, and governments face growing difficulties in providing adequate care and support for older adults living with dementia.
A debilitating neurological condition, dementia is caused by various diseases or injuries that damage the brain and impair its functioning. Its increasing prevalence has made it a pressing global health concern.
Women are disproportionally affected by dementia, experiencing a greater burden of morbidity and disability than men. Women account for approximately two-thirds of deaths from Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia worldwide and provide about 70% of informal care hours delivered by family and friends
Dementia can affect memory, thinking, communication, mood, and behavior, as well as a person’s ability to perform everyday activities. Symptoms generally worsen over time, often placing substantial emotional, physical, and financial burdens on individuals, families, caregivers, and health systems.
The number of people living with dementia is rising rapidly as populations age and life expectancies increase.
Dementia, however, is not a normal part of aging. Although some changes in memory and functioning are common among older adults, dementia can significantly impair memory, thinking, judgment, and the ability to perform everyday activities.
Dementia is the seventh leading cause of death worldwide and a major cause of disability and dependency among older adults.
Alzheimer’s disease is the most common type of dementia, accounting for roughly 60–70% of all dementia cases. Other types include vascular dementia, dementia with Lewy bodies, which is associated with abnormal protein deposits in nerve cells, and frontotemporal dementia, which involves degeneration of the brain’s frontal and temporal lobes.
Dementia affects not only individuals but also families, healthcare systems, and society as a whole. Its growing prevalence is creating substantial economic, healthcare, and social pressures worldwide.
As the number of people living with dementia continues to rise, healthcare systems face increasing demand for medical and support services. Governments and communities must devote additional resources to meet these needs, while families often assume significant and demanding caregiving responsibilities.
Hospitals and long-term care facilities also face growing pressure because people with advanced dementia may require intensive, around-the-clock supervision and assistance with everyday activities.
Beyond direct healthcare and long-term care expenses, dementia generates substantial indirect costs. These include lost productivity when people with dementia can no longer work and reduced workforce participation among family members who leave or reduce employment to provide unpaid care. Together, these direct and indirect costs add substantially to the broader economic and social burden of dementia.
Women are disproportionally affected by dementia, experiencing a greater burden of morbidity and disability than men. Women account for approximately two-thirds of deaths from Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia worldwide and provide about 70% of informal care hours delivered by family and friends.
People who care for relatives with dementia face greater health risks than those caring for family members without dementia, and these risks can persist even after their relatives have died. Caring for people with dementia therefore places substantial burdens on families and society, while the growing global burden of dementia care remains largely underestimated.
In 2021, approximately 57 million people were living with dementia, according to the World Health Organization, and dementia caused about 2 million deaths. With nearly 10 million new cases of dementia occurring each year, largely reflecting population ageing and increasing longevity, the number of people living with dementia is projected to reach about 107 million by 2026 and more than 150 million by 2050 (Figure 1).
Source: World Health Organization.
Dementia can affect memory, thinking, communication, mood, and behavior. Early signs and symptoms of dementia are often observable and may involve difficulties with memory, attention, communication, reasoning, judgement, and processing visual information.
Possible early signs of dementia include forgetting recent events or familiar information, getting lost while walking or driving, becoming confused in familiar places, having difficulty following conversations, forgetting the names of close family members or friends, using unusual words to refer to familiar objects, and struggling to complete routine or familiar tasks independently (Table 1).
Source; U.S. Center for Disease Control.
Although there is currently no known cure for dementia, WHO guidelines report that up to 45% of dementia risk could potentially be prevented or delayed.
The WHO guidelines recommend several healthy behaviors and lifestyle interventions that may reduce dementia risk. These include cognitive training and stimulation, and participation in social activities for adults with normal cognition or mild cognitive impairment.
Other measures that may help reduce dementia risk and support quality of life and well-being include staying physically active, pursuing additional education, eating a healthy diet, drinking a couple of cups of coffee daily, quitting smoking, limiting alcohol consumption, reading regularly, engaging in mentally stimulating activities, and maintaining social connections. Keeping track of daily tasks, managing stress, and obtaining regular medical check-ups may also help people maintain independence and well-being (Table 2).
Source: World Health Organization and U.S. National Institutes of Health.
Some country studies report that each additional year of education is associated with a lower risk of dementia, with the protective association continuing beyond high school. In other words, additional years of education may provide cumulative protection against dementia. Recent research has also found that hearing aids can reduce the rate of cognitive decline in older adults at high risk of dementia by nearly 50%.
Much can also be done to support people living with dementia and those who care for them. Caring for a person with dementia, however, can be challenging and can affect caregivers’ own health and well-being.
Providing care requires patience, clear communication, and attention to the person’s emotional well-being.
Helpful caregiving tips include starting discussing care needs early, speaking calmly and clearly, avoiding arguments, providing reassurance, and avoiding questions such as “Don’t you remember?”. Other strategies include distracting an agitated person with a snack, photo album, humor, or soothing music; maintaining a consistent routine and familiar mealtime setting; encouraging independence and regular exercise; using written to-do lists and reminders; simplifying choices; and ensuring a safe environment.
Caregivers should also prioritize their own physical and emotional well-being. The demands of dementia caregiving can contribute to emotional stress, physical exhaustion, and burnout.
Helpful self-care strategies include taking regular breaks, seeking assistance from family members or others involved in caregiving, maintaining social connections, engaging in regular physical activity, and seeking mental health support when needed. These measures can help reduce stress and exhaustion and lower the risk of caregiver burnout.
Although age itself does not cause of dementia, it is the strongest known risk factor, with the likelihood of developing dementia generally increasing with age. Consequently, countries with older populations, such as Japan, Germany, Italy, and Greece, tend to report higher dementia rates (Figure 2).
Source: World Population Review.
In sum, dementia is a rapidly rising global health challenge, particularly as populations age. Countries face increasing difficulties in providing adequate care and support for older adults living with dementia.
Given the limited availability of effective treatments, there is an urgent need for comprehensive national strategies to prevent or delay dementia and address its broader social, economic, and health consequences. Such strategies should take a coordinated, long-term approach to strengthening prevention, improving care and support services, and reducing the burden on individuals, families, communities, and health systems.
Joseph Chamie is a consulting demographer, a former director of the United Nations Population Division, and author of numerous publications on population issues.
BULAWAYO, Oct 6 2026 (IPS) - A new report reveals widespread labour exploitation among food system workers, warning that keeping the world fed comes at the cost of human dignity.
More than 1.4 billion people work in the food industry – the largest employer in the world – and are the most abused, according to a report, Food Work: The workers behind our food and the exploitation they face, published this week by the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food).
The global food system exploits more workers than any other economic sector, and the report notes that this exploitation is not accidental but rather ingrained in a business model that keeps labour cheap while maximising profits.
Abuse All Round
“Often hidden from view, food workers face low pay, wage theft, forced labour, human trafficking, discrimination, sexual violence, dangerous working conditions, and exclusion from social safety nets,” the report found.
“From farmworkers, fishers, and slaughterhouse staff to delivery drivers, restaurant and supermarket employees, and domestic workers, labour abuse is rife at every link in the food chain.”
The report highlighted that migrants, women, refugees, and racialised workers are funnelled into the worst conditions, where speaking up risks job loss, deportation and blacklisting.
IPES-Food co-chair Olivier De Schutter said what was most surprising about the findings of the report was the deep hypocrisy of governments concerning migrant farmworkers. With many countries relying heavily on migrant labour, especially for fruit and vegetable production, as witnessed during the Covid-19 pandemic, governments often grant migrant workers short-term, seasonal stays.
“These workers are routinely subject to forms of exploitation and abuse that would be unimaginable if they were natives – housed in poor conditions, paid poverty wages, and working in often dangerous conditions,” said Olivier De Schutter, a former UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food.
De Schutter argued that because migrant workers were considered unskilled, they were treated like second-class workers and that they had no or minimal connections to the communities in countries that host them; they barely complained in cases of abuse.
This practice is a form of trafficking in human beings, except that it’s legal and officially encouraged, De Schutter told IPS.
According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the gross value of global agricultural production is estimated at just over $5 trillion, while the World Bank estimates agricultural value-added at about $3.2 trillion.
The global food system is valued at more than $8 trillion, yet those who produce and market the food survive on poverty wages, which calls for a change.
De Schutter identified three mutually reinforcing challenges which include loopholes in the current legislation which does not apply minimum wage or on working hours, poor law enforcement and the difficulty of organising workers where unions are discouraged or even repressed.
“Governments routinely take the position that, where workers are informal, labour legislation does not apply, and labour inspectorates have no role to play,” he said, describing this situation as absurd.
‘It’s like saying that if you don’t have a driver’s licence, you can ignore the traffic rules. In fact, international human rights law requires that basic labour legislation be extended to informal workers and that incentives be given to employers to register their workers to ensure informality does not pay and that formalisation instead be rewarded.”
IPES-Food co-chair Olivier De Schutter. Credit: IPES-Food
Systemic Exploitation
“Unfair employment arrangements, off-the-books work, and lack of basic job security all combine to entrench worker vulnerability,” he said. “Governments directly enable this abuse through legal carve-outs that explicitly exempt food and farm workers from basic protections on wages, workplace safety, and union rights.”
The report highlighted that even where protective laws exist, weak public enforcement and pervasive informal employment leave millions of workers unprotected.
Migrant workers are essential to today’s food systems, yet they face some of the highest rates of workplace abuse, wage theft, forced labour, injury, and death, the report noted.
Worsening Conditions
Compounding these structural abuses, a dangerous convergence of emerging forces was making food work increasingly hazardous and exploitative.
“Climate change is becoming a workers’ rights crisis,” said Mamadou Goïta, IPES-Food panel expert. “Farmworkers already face poverty wages, toxic pesticides, and gruelling conditions. Now climate change is turning up the heat and making their work even more dangerous.”
Goïta said governments were still failing to guarantee workers even basic, lifesaving protections like shade, rest, and drinking water.
“The people producing our food should not have to risk their health or their lives to earn a living,” said Goïta.
The impacts of extreme heat and drought are usually measured in lost crops and harvests. But the human toll on the world’s 928 million agricultural workers was also mounting, with heat stress being the most common health threat facing farmworkers, the report noted.
The consequences of health threats include dizziness, vomiting, and exhaustion from heat stroke and kidney disease. In the US, farmworkers were 35 times more likely to die from heat stress than other workers.
Agricultural regions across Africa, the Americas, and southern Europe now experience up to 50 more days of dangerous heat each year than in the 1970s. In Africa, 93% of workers were exposed to dangerous heat, most of whom work in food systems, said the report.
The report warned that while climate change was exposing workers to extreme heat, severe weather and toxic wildfire smoke, corporate power was suppressing wages, undermining collective bargaining, and shifting risks onto workers, which meant prioritising shareholder returns over decent work.
“At the cutting edge, digital technologies are creating new frontiers of exploitation: gig-based platform work, automation, algorithmic management, and workplace surveillance are isolating workers, intensifying productivity pressures, increasing injury rates, and eroding worker bargaining power,” said the report.
Organise or Agonise
But workers are fighting back. They are forming unions and cooperatives, staging strikes, litigating for rights, and building alliances to demand comprehensive labour standards that recognise their worth and dignity.
The report shows that comprehensive labour standards, living wages, and the right to collective bargaining can shift the world’s largest workforce from the food system’s most invisible victims to resilience.
The report emphasised that in achieving lasting transformation in the food systems industry, there must be a strong policy and power shift across five key priorities. These include building the power of workers by strengthening trade unions and expanding collective bargaining. In addition, legal carve-outs for food and farm workers must be eliminated and equal rights for migrant workers guaranteed.
Policies that criminalise migrants must be scrapped, while employer-tied visa schemes must be dismantled to guarantee equal labour rights and social protections regardless of status, the report said, urging for a curtailment of corporate power so that companies are held accountable for labour abuses throughout their supply chains.
“The people who feed the world deserve safe, fairly paid, and dignified work,” said the report. “Food systems must never depend on low wages, hazardous conditions, or invisible labour. Achieving this requires changing who holds power, who profits, and who bears the costs.”
IPS UN Bureau Report
VICTORIA, Seychelles, Oct 6 2026 (IPS) - One night, many years ago now, on a remote beach in the outer islands of Seychelles, I sat in the darkness and watched a green turtle come ashore. She had waited for the heat of the day to leave the sand. Under a sky crowded with stars, she hauled herself slowly above the tideline, dug with a patience no human hand could match, and laid her eggs. Then, in the small hours, she turned back toward the water. She did not hurry. She paused once, as though listening, and then made her slow, unhesitating way down the sand, back to a home older than any I could imagine.
James Alix Michel
We, the human beings watching from the shore, are the ones who wonder.
This, I have come to believe, is the deepest source of the trouble we now find ourselves in. Not our tools, not our economies, not even our numbers, though all of these press hard upon the living world. The deepest source is an older mistake: the unexamined assumption that we stand outside nature, deciding its fate. That the Earth is a stage and we are its principal players, and that everything else, the reef, the forest, the migrating whale, the green turtle, is scenery, resource, or backdrop.
The truth is far more humbling. We are not the authors of nature. We are its late arrivals.
Consider the arithmetic of belonging. The Earth is some four and a half billion years old. Life appeared here almost four billion years ago. Coral reefs were already ancient when the dinosaurs walked. Forests had been breathing for hundreds of millions of years before the first upright ape rose on the savannah. The calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon that composes almost everything we are, was forged in stars that lived and died long before this planet existed. To imagine ourselves separate from nature is not merely a philosophical mistake. It is a physical impossibility.
We Seychellois have a particular reason to understand this, for we are late arrivals twice over. Our granite islands are among the oldest islands on Earth, the only oceanic islands made of granite: fragments of the ancient supercontinent of Gondwana, left behind in the middle of the ocean when India drifted away some sixty-five million years ago. For almost all of that immense time, no human foot touched them. The turtles came, and the seabirds, and the giant tortoises. We came only in 1770, when a small party of Europeans, Africans and Indians stepped ashore on Sainte Anne. Others followed, from Africa, from India, from China, from Europe, some by choice and many, let us never forget, in chains. From that meeting of peoples, in scarcely two and a half centuries, a nation was born.
And something remarkable happened. A people with no ancestral memory of these islands learned, within a few generations, to belong to them. Our grandparents learned to read the sea as others read books. They gave thanks to the ocean before setting out and again on returning, and spoke of it as one speaks of a mother. Their kinship was not inherited; it was learned. That, to me, is among the most hopeful facts I know: belonging can be learned.
There is a school of thought, gathering strength in our time, that invites the whole of humanity to learn it too. Some call it biocentrism, the recognition that life in all its forms carries moral weight. Others call it deep ecology, the insistence that the human being is one strand in a vast web, not the loom on which the web is woven. The American conservationist Aldo Leopold put it most simply, many decades ago: we must learn to think “like a mountain.” The names matter less than the instinct behind them: that the living world is not a possession, and that our first duty to it is not extraction but attention.
This is why the environmental struggle feels to me, at its deepest level, like a spiritual struggle as much as an economic one. The numbers we use to measure our crisis are necessary and true, but they cannot on their own move the human heart. What moves the heart is the recognition that we are kin to what we are losing. That the coral bleaching in a lagoon is not a distant statistic but family. That the night sky above the nesting beach is not decoration but a memory of our own origin.
I do not offer this as sentiment. I offer it as strategy. For decades we have tried to persuade humanity to protect the Earth by appealing to self-interest. The argument is true, but it has not been sufficient. Self-interest is a thin thread from which to hang the future of a planet. What is needed now is the older and stronger thread of kinship. And kinship, once acted upon, is answered. On Aldabra, where green turtles were once taken in great numbers, decades of patient protection have allowed the nesting population to multiply several times over. The sea, it seems, is ready to forgive us, if we are ready to belong.
James Alix Michel, is Former President of the Republic of Seychelles
IPS UN Bureau
Excerpt:
A reflection on kinship, memory, and what the Earth has always been trying to tell us.