AUSTIN, United States, Apr 9 2019 (IPS) – There’s much to think about regarding food this month. April is Reducing Food Waste Month in the United States, as efforts mount here to reduce food loss and waste, while globally Sunday Apr.…
Category: Op-Ed
10 orgs highlighting the true cost of food
Danielle Nierenberg I’m thrilled to join the Global Alliance for the Future of Food and over 100 thinkers and doers in the food system for The Future of Food: True Cost Accounting for Transformative Change event. Together we will discuss…
NGOs blast US for undermining Int’l Criminal Court
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 8 2019 (IPS) – As it paves a destructive path against international institutions and multilateralism, the Trump administration is slowly but steadily undermining the United Nations and its affiliated agencies. The US has already withdrawn both from the…
Safeguarding the health of people and planet thru food
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 6 2019 (IPS) – Food sustainability, both in production and consumption, is at the heart of a healthy public and planet. On World Health Day, it is increasingly clear that a radical transformation of the global food system…
Growing ethnic, religious intolerance threat to Asean peace?
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Apr 5 2019 (IPS) – When the one-year anniversary of Malaysia’s historic presidential election outcome rolls around in early May, the wave of euphoria that followed it will be all but a wistful memory. The surprise outcome that…
Dams blamed for shrinking area, farm output in Kaveri delta
by K.A. Shaji • The delta of river Kaveri, which is the agricultural backbone of south India, has shrunk by 20 percent because of diversion of land for non-agricultural purposes and climate change. • The region witnessed an increase in…
Japan’s gender gap
CHICAGO, Illinois, Mar 27 2019 (IPS) – Japan is not making progress in gender equality, at least relative to the rest of the world. Despite the Japanese government’s attempts in recent years to pass legislation promoting the economic activity of women,…
Education for all—refugees too
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 3 2019 (IPS) – Young Rohingya refugees are now facing new hardships as the Bangladeshi government cracks down on their education and future opportunities. Since January, the Government of Bangladesh has ordered the expulsion of Rohingya refugee children…
Acute food insecurity ‘far too high’ as 113 million go hungry
Approximately 113 million people in 53 countries experienced high levels of food insecurity last year, according to a new joint UN and European Union (EU) report released on Tuesday, which warns that these crises are primarily driven by conflict and…
Grassroots organising points in fight against repression
JOHANNESBURG, Apr 2 2019 (IPS) – “I never thought it would get so big and I think it is amazing.” The words of a 16-year-old Swedish teenager who skipped school to protest outside her government’s inaction on climate change. Greta Thunberg…
The NPT and conditions for nuclear disarmament
By Daryl G. Kimball Washington DC, Apr 1 2019 (IPS) – Fifty years ago, shortly after the conclusion of the 1968 nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), the United States and the Soviet Union launched the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT). Negotiated…
Sri Lanka: Don’t end death penalty moratorium – HRW
The Sri Lankan government should drop plans to resume executions, which would end an unofficial 43-year moratorium in the country, Human Rights Watch said today. On March 31, 2019, President Maithripala Sirisena said that a date had been set to resume carrying out…
Cyclone Idai: Time to reassess disaster management
HARARE, Mar 28 2019 (IPS) – It was one of the worst tropical cyclones hit Southern Africa in recent times. Cyclone Idai, which has been characterised by heavy rains and flooding including mudslides in some parts of Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and Malawi,…
HR defenders need to be defended as much as they defend rights
GENEVA, Apr 1 2019 (IPS) – They are ordinary people – mothers, fathers, sisters, sons, daughters, brothers, friends. But for me they are extraordinary people – the ones who have the courage to stand up for everyone else’s rights. They are…
Long-term monitoring of the Indian Himalayas to aid conservation
Under the watchful gaze of Indian researchers, six one-hectare plots, earmarked deep inside the undisturbed forests of Uttarakhand in the western Himalayas, have set the ball rolling for long-term monitoring of the Himalayan forest ecosystem and its sensitivity to climate…
SDGs and Bangladesh: Progress, challenges, missing links
‘Despite various challenges Bangladesh is on track to achieve Sustainable Development Goals’, a recent government report claims. The report titled Sustainable Development Goals: Bangladesh Progress Report 2018 says, Bangladesh is performing well in various aspects including poverty reduction, gender equality,…
Rising inequalities in Asia-Pacific a major obstacle to progress
BANGKOK, Thailand, Mar 28 2019 (IPS) – 2019 will be a defining year for the 2030 Agenda; and the regional forums will pave the way for our first stocktaking on the SDGs in the General Assembly in September. Asia-Pacific is a…
‘Don’t tell my husband I have leprosy’
MAJURO, Mar 28 2019 (IPS) – Meretha Pierson has been a nurse for the past seven years, working in the government-run leprosy clinic in Majuro, the capital of the Marshall Islands. Her patients come in all ages, from different economic backgrounds…
Green, gray infrastructure mix for water, climate resilience
“Integrating Green and Gray – Creating Next Generation Infrastructure” is a joint report from the World Bank and the World Resources Institute (WRI) that aims to advance the integration of green and gray infrastructure solutions on the ground. It places…
French Museum spotlights on immigrants’ musical impact
PARIS, Mar 26 2019 (IPS) – Amid the morass of Brexit and continuous debates on immigration, a French museum has launched a thought-provoking exhibition about music and migration.The massive show at Paris’ Musée de l’histoire d’immigration (National Museum of the History…
Myanmar and China’s bride trafficking problem
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 22 2019 (IPS) – Women and girls from Myanmar are increasingly being trafficked as “brides” to China, a human rights group found. In a new report, Human Rights Watch (HRW) documented numerous cases of women and girls from Myanmar’s Kachin and…
Communication, a key tool for South-South cooperation
BUENOS AIRES, Mar 24 2019 (IPS) – Communication can be a key tool for the development of cooperation among the countries of the global South, but the ever closer relations between them do not receive the attention they deserve from the…
Climate change imperils Sundarbans tiger habitats
In 50 years from now, by 2070, the entire population of Bengal tigers in the Sundarbans mangroves in Bangladesh is likely to be lost to climate change and sea level rise, a modeling study by Bangladesh and Australian researchers has predicted. Further,…
Reverse engineering for SDGs
ROME, Feb 20 2019 (IPS) – When young people from small towns and villages seek higher education they have to usually migrate to big cities leaving their local communities behind. On completion of their degree from the Universities, they generally prefer…
Israeli forces’ 2018 Gaza actions may constitute war crimes
Geneva (Kanaga Raja) – During the large-scale demonstrations that began in Gaza on 30 March 2018, individual members of the Israeli Security Forces, in the course of their response to the demonstrations, killed and injured civilians who were neither directly…
A 3-trillion-dollar business UNEP wants people to develop
NAIROBI, Mar 12 2019 (IPS) – In the East African region, communities around the continent’s largest water body, Lake Victoria, regard the water hyacinth as a great menace that clogs the lake and hampers their fishing activities. But in Lagos, Nigeria,…
Women take the lead tackling climate change in Bangladesh
LONDON / DHAKA, Mar 15 2019 (IPS) – The stakes are high for women when faced with a warming world – their livelihoods jeopardised by labour markets that tend to put men first, their family responsibilities increasing rapidly in the face…
Hundreds of thousands unite in climate strike for the Planet
ROME, Mar 16 2019 (IPS) – Friday, Mar. 15 saw hundreds of thousands of young people across the world take to the streets to join the climate strike. “We are demonstrating today for our planet and for our future. This is…
Urgent call to African food sovereignty movements
JOHANNESBURG, Mar 8 2019 (IPS) – Africa is facing dire times. Climate change is having major impacts on the region and on agriculture in particular, with smallholder farmers, and especially women, facing drought, general lack of water, shifting seasons, and floods…
A quarter of eligible countries haven’t accessed Green Fund
Interesting findings surface in the evaluation of Green Fund’s readiness programme Kathmandu/New Delhi, 8 March (Prerna Bomzan and Indrajit Bose) – At the 22nd Board meeting of the Green Climate Fund (GCF) held in Songdo, South Korea from 26-28 February,…