The Week with IPS 9/5

	Women – the Pillar of the Social Struggle in Chile’s Patagonia Region Marianela Jarroud In few places in Chile are women the pillars of community, grassroots rural and environmental movements as they are in the southern wilderness region of Patagonia. It is a social role that history forced them to assume in this remote part of the country. “Patagonian women had to give birth ... MORE > >
	No Easy Choices for Syrians with Small Children Shelly Kittleson The woman who walked into the Islamic Front (IF) media office near the Turkish border was on the verge of fainting under the hot Syrian sun, but all she cared about was her infant son. With over half of the country’s population displaced, she was just one of the parents among the more than three ... MORE > >
	Child Trafficking Rampant in Underdeveloped Indian Villages K. S. Harikrishnan In a country where well over half the population lives on less than two dollars a day, it takes a lot to shock people. The sight of desperate families traveling in search of money and food, whole communities defecating in the open, old women performing back-breaking labour, all this is simply part ... MORE > >
	Mass Deportations Don’t Squelch Hondurans’ Migration Dreams Thelma Mejía The clock marks 9 AM when a bus coming from the Mexican city of Tapachula reaches Corinto, on the border between Honduras and Guatemala. It is the first bus of the day, carrying children and their families sent back from a failed attempt at making it across the border into the United States. The ... MORE > >
	ISIS Carrying Out Ethnic Cleansing on “Historic Scale” Jim Lobe While the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama ponders broader actions against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), Amnesty International Tuesday accused the group of carrying out ethnic cleansing in Iraq on a “historic scale.” In a 26-page report, which was based on on-site ... MORE > >
	Afghan “Torn” Women Get Another Chance Karlos Zurutuza "The smell of faeces and urine isolates them completely. Their husbands abandon them and they become stigmatised forever” – Dr Pashtoon Kohistani barely needs two lines to sum up the drama of those women affected by obstetric fistula. Alongside the health centre in Badakhshan – 290 km northeast ... MORE > >
	Why Principle Matters at UN Human Rights Council Mandeep S.Tiwana The killings of hundreds of civilians, including scores of children, in Gaza – whose only fault was to have been born on the wrong side of the wall – was a major point of contention at the United Nations Human Rights Council at the end of July. The high death toll caused by indiscriminate ... MORE > >
	Ban on Nuke Tests OK, But Where's the Ban on Nuke Weapons? Thalif Deen As the United Nations commemorated the International Day Against Nuclear Tests this week, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon lamented the fact that in a world threatened by some 17,000 nuclear weapons, not a single one has been destroyed so far. Instead, he said, countries possessing such weapons ... MORE > >