By Maged Srour ROME, Jul 12 2018 (IPS) – Deforestation and unsustainable farming are depriving the planet of forests, while destructive practices in fishing are limiting the chance to sustainably manage our oceans.
Category: Think green
Soil degradation – largest environmental issue of our time
By Tharanga Yakupitiyage UN, Jul 13 (IPS) – Land degradation caused by human activities is occurring at an alarming rate across the world, and the cost will be steep if no action is taken.
A debate on abolishing manual scavenging
12th July (10 am-1 pm) Side Event: Inclusion in Sustainable Development Goal 6- Water and Sanitation. A debate on abolishing manual scavenging @ American-Scandinavian Foundation, 58 Park Ave Deepak Nikarthil deepak.nikarthil@asiadalitrightsforum.org via googlegroups.com – asiapacificrcem asiapacificrcem@googlegroups.com
New Deal For Irish Families
by Stephan Köppe With the repeal of the 8th amendment, Irish women and their partners will have a choice if and when to have children later this year. This choice will have major implications for social policy and the development…
Climate Fund fails to reach agreement on replenishment process
Songdo, 9 July (Indrajit Bose and Meena Raman) — Attempts to arrive at consensus on the first formal replenishment process of the UNFCCC’s Green Climate Fund (GCF) came to a naught at the 20th meeting of the Board of the…
Agriculture policy to raise productivity approved in Cabinet
The government has given approval to the National Agricultural Policy-2018 (Jatiya Krishi Niti-2018) with an objective to increase the productivity of the crops, enhance income of the farmers, diversify of crops, produce nutritious and safe food, develop marketing system and…
Planting seeds for a safer future
By Abdullah Mashrif IN PREPARATION OF MONSOON SEASON, THE INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR MIGRATION (IOM) IS TURNING TO INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS TO SUPPORT THE NEEDS OF THE ROHINGYA REFUGEES IN COX’S BAZAR. IOM IS PLANTING VETIVER GRASS ALL OVER THE ROHINGYA REFUGEE…
Clean water access to all, a must to defeat superbugs
A medical microbiologist working in developing countries says that a major obstacle in tackling antimicrobial resistance is a lack of access to clean water.
The Rohingya villages UN investigators can’t visit
Nearly 700,000 Rohingya Muslims fled last year’s brutal military crackdown in the northern Rakhine province of Myanmar. Hundreds of villages were burnt to the ground, and there were widespread rape and murder.
Declining birth rates not exclusive to wealthy nations
By Ranjit Devraj New Delhi, Jul 2 2018 (IPS) – Countries do not have to be economically prosperous to move from a situation of high birth and death rates to low fertility and mortality rates.
Russia joins Nuclear Quality Standard Association NQSA
Dhaka, June 30 – Russian State Atomic Energy Corporation Rosatom, represented by Atomenergoprom, joined the Nuclear Quality Standard Association(NQSA). An agreement to this effect was signed at the World Nuclear Exhibition, held in Paris at the end of last month.
How Costa Rica gets it right
By Joseph E. Stiglitz How has a country of under five million people become a world leader in developing holistic policies that promote democratic, sustainable, and inclusive economic growth? The answer lies in its people’s belief that focusing on the…
Bamboo, a sustainability powerhouse
By Ed Holt Vienna, Jun 29, 2018 (IPS) – A landmark conference bringing more than 1,200 people from across the world together to promote and explain the importance of bamboo and rattan to the global sustainable development and tackling climate…
25 programs bringing veterans to the new food movement
From Danielle Nierenberg Greetings from Châlons-en-Champagne, France! Today I am speaking at the Planet A International Forum, where I’ll offer my take on efforts to enhance the changing world of agriculture. This Fourth of July, Food Tank is celebrating military…
First electric vehicle in Phnom Penh by DHL Express Cambodia
Phnom Penh, Cambodia – Media OutReach – 27 June 2018 – DHL Express, the world’s leading international express services provider, has deployed the country’s first electric vehicle in the Phnom Penh Special Economic Zone for delivery and pick-ups within the…
Gaming disorder: New disease -experts say- hard to diagnose
By Carmen Arroyo and Emily Thampoe UN, Jun 2018 (IPS) – The World Health Organization (WHO) has formally added “Gaming Disorder” as a disease recognized by the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) in its 11th revision of its official collection…
The costs of trade war
by Mukhisa Kituyi Geneva – According to an old African proverb, “When elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers.” The same is true for full-blown trade wars: when major economies clash, developing countries will be among the hardest hit.
Rediscovering the promise of nuclear power
by Wade Allison Oxford – At the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris, world leaders, at last, seemed to recognize the reality of climate change. But the response they are pursuing is fundamentally flawed, given its dependence on…
Despite the Eid vacation kitchen markets are normal
Dhaka, June 22 – After a passage of Eid-ul-Fitr, one of the biggest religious festivals of the Muslims, the capitals’ kitchen market have remained normal. Whatever was available yesterday in kitchen market, despite shortage supplies prices remain unchanged as it was…
World Day to Combat Desertification – Invest in land
This video is part of a series of stories and op-eds launched by IPS on the occasion of the World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought on June 17 Rome, Jun 13 (IPS) – We are witnessing the degradation of…
Lottery for disabled people’s organization, BPKS, launched
Dhaka, June 20 – The Minister for food Quamrul Islam on Wednesday opened a lottery of the Bangladesh Protibandhi Kallyan Somity (BPKS) to raise fund for this national voluntary organization dedicated to the welfare of people with all forms of…
Food sustainability, migration, nutrition and women
By Enrique Yeves Rome, Jun 19 (IPS) – We worry about how we can continue to put food on our tables, and yet one-third of food is never eaten, instead of being lost or wasted.
Assistance urgent for Rohingya facing severe monsoon: AI
On World Refugee Day, Amnesty International calls on the international community to urgently step up international assistance for more than 900,000 Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar District as they face severe monsoon weather.
bdnews24.com online paper blocked at BTRC instructions
Dhaka, June 18 – Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) on Monday ordered all the international internet gateway (IIG) operators to block the online news portal, bdnews24.com, immediately.
You are more powerful than you think!
By Monique Barbut Bonn, Jun 14, 2018 (IPS) – Are you overwhelmed by the depressing news coming at you daily? Conflict, forced migrants, famine, floods, hurricanes, extinction of species, climate change, threats of war … a seemingly endless list. It…
Greener, greater cities
by Pascal Mittermaier Washington, DC – What should a “green” city look like? Should it resemble Copenhagen, with its high rates of bicycle commuting and recycling? What about Curitiba, the capital of Brazil’s Paraná state, with its pedestrian-centered planning? Or…
The versatile bamboo – when a grass towers over the trees
By Manipadma Jena New Delhi, Jun 12, 2018 (IPS) – As governments scramble for corrective options to the worsening land degradation set to cost the global economy a whopping 23 trillion dollars within the next 30 years, a humble grass…
Is there an algorithm to end world hunger?
From Danielle Nierenberg Every day, thousands of researchers and scientists are collecting massive amounts of data about agricultural systems—from soil chemistry and germination rates to harvest indicators and market logistics. At the same time, an estimated 500 million smallholder farmers—the…
BD Greens for climate financing for resilient infrastructure
Dhaka, June 14 – Bangladesh Greens at a press conference on Thursday called for a focus on climate resilient infrastructure development for climate Financing in the upcoming national budget for 2018-19 fiscal year.
Nourishing cities with nature
by Carlo Ratti Boston – Ever since the ancient Greek poet Theocritus wrote his pastoral idylls romanticizing rural life, people have been pondering how to build cities that are in concert with their natural surroundings. But with rates of urbanization…