On the afternoon of September 24, I watched the news unfolding. Houses flattened, hundreds dead and many more injured following a major earthquake in the Awaran district of Balochistan province.
Following the agreement brokered between the governments of Russia and the United States of America, the international medical humanitarian organization Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) calls on these two States to place at the top of their diplomatic agendas the substantial scale up of humanitarian aid to millions of war-affected Syrians.
The closed-door negotiations to draft the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement include discussions that could severely restrict access to affordable life-saving medicines for millions of people, especially in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Leaked drafts of the US negotiating positions on the TPP purport to show that Washington is seeking to roll back international public health safeguards in favour of more aggressive protection for intellectual property.
Worldwide, millions of people die each year because they cannot afford the medicines they need. These numbers could climb even higher, unless Canada and other Pacific Rim countries involved in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade negotiations take decisive action to protect global public health.
I recently returned from a two-week mission to Syria, Lebanon and Turkey. There I met with Syrians struggling to survive a brutal civil war that has so far killed more than 70,000 people and forced more than one and a half million to flee to neighbouring countries.
