Press releases

More troops, funding and medical staff are urgently needed if we have a hope of stopping Ebola spiralling out of control, international agency Oxfam warns today.

People around the world are trapped in a ‘toxic triangle’ made up of short-term financial investors, timid governments and fossil fuel companies, which threatens to push up  global temperatures, putting 400 million people at risk of hunger and drought by 2060. 

Oxfam is warning that the Ebola outbreak in West Africa will not be contained unless more is done to prevent new infections. 

Rising food costs, climate change and dramatic changes in land tenure are increasing the reality of hunger and leaving food-insecure people feeling they “are rated as the cheapest of the cheapest”.

One in four people in South Africa do not have enough to eat, and half the population is at risk of hunger, despite the country producing more than enough food.

The bulk of money pledged at the global donor conference to rebuild Gaza will languish in bank accounts for decades before it reaches people unless long-standing Israeli restrictions on imports are lifted, Oxfam said today. 

Agencies fear recent improvements will be wiped out as the number of severely hungry people will rise by one million in first three months of 2015.

Oxfam is calling for a concerted international effort to stop Ebola and is calling for military logistical support.

The European Commission is putting the interests of multinational drug companies above those of millions of people with no access to affordable life-saving medicines, warn Oxfam and Health Action International.

Seven more states will ratify the Arms Trade Treaty today – bringing the overall total  to over 50 and triggering the countdown to entry into force.