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Friday, October 3, 2014

The Week with IPS 10/3

2014/10/3 Click here for the online version of this IPS newsletter   

New Global Declaration "Insufficient" to Tackle Deforestation
Carey L. Biron
Heads of state, civil society groups and the leaders of some of the world's largest companies this week urged their peers to sign on to a landmark new global agreement aimed at halting deforestation by 2030, even as others are warning the accord is too lax. The New York Declaration on Forests ... MORE > >

Documents Detail Secret Talks Between Washington and Havana
Roger Hamilton-Martin
In a new book cataloguing the recent history of clandestine exchanges between the U.S. and Cuba, the reliance on secret intermediaries belies the common perception that the two governments rarely communicated during the decades that followed the Cuban revolution in 1959. Documents detail how ... MORE > >

Latin America on a Dangerous Precipice
Diana Cariboni
"We could be the last Latin American and Caribbean generation living together with hunger." The assertion, made by Raúl Benítez, a regional officer for the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), shows one side of the coin: only 4.6 percent of the region's population is ... MORE > >

Puerto Rico's Green Crusaders Still Going Strong
Carmelo Ruiz-Marrero
The heart of Puerto Rico's central mountain range is the site of an extraordinary story of struggle and triumph. Since the 1960s, the government of this commonwealth of the United States had intended to authorise strip mining for copper in the mountain municipalities of Lares, Adjuntas and ... MORE > >

Vaca Muerta, Argentina's New Development Frontier
Fabiana Frayssinet
Production here has skyrocketed so fast that for now the installations of the YPF oil company at the Loma Campana deposit in southwest Argentina are a jumble of interconnected shipping containers. Argentina is staking its bets on unconventional oil and gas resources, and the race to achieve ... MORE > >

Zimbabwe's Family Planning Dilemma
Ignatius Banda
Pregnant at 15, Samantha Yakubu* is in a fix. The 16-year-old boy she claims was responsible for her pregnancy has refused to accept her version of events, insisting that he was "not the only one who slept with her". Now Yakubu has dropped out of school and, like many sexually active youth in ... MORE > >

OPINION: On Reproductive Rights, Progress with Concerns
Joseph Chamie
For most of human history, reproductive rights essentially meant men and women accepting the number, timing and spacing of their children, as well as possible childlessness. All this changed radically in the second half of the 20th century with the introduction of new medical technologies aimed at ... MORE > >

OPINION: From Elephants to Blue Whales, Sri Lanka Leads the Way on Biodiversity
Dr. Palitha Kohona
Sri Lanka will host the World Biodiversity Congress (WBC) Nov. 24-27. Given its long and active history of preserving biodiversity, it would be most appropriate for Sri Lanka to be the next host of this global event, which also marks the U.N.'s Decade on Biodiversity. The world is confronting ... MORE > >

Lack of Accountability Fuels Gender-Based Violence in India
Stella Paul
On a bright March morning, a 17-year old tribal girl woke as usual, and went to catch fish in the village river in the Chirang district of India's northeastern Assam state. Later that evening, villagers found her lifeless body on the riverbank. According to Taburam Pegu, the police officer ... MORE > >

Blistering Drought Leaves the Poorest High and Dry
Amantha Perera
The last time there was mud on his village roads was about a year ago, says Murugesu Mohanabavan, a farmer from the village of Karachchi, situated about 300 km north of Sri Lanka's capital, Colombo. "Since last October we have had nothing but sun, all day," the 40-year-old father of two ... MORE > >

Zero Nuclear Weapons: A Never-Ending Journey Ahead
Thalif Deen
When the United Nations commemorated its first ever "international day for the total elimination of nuclear weapons," the lingering question in the minds of most anti-nuclear activists was: are we anywhere closer to abolishing the deadly weapons or are we moving further and further away from their ... MORE > >

Championing Ocean Conservation Or Paying Lip Service to the Seas?
Christopher Pala
President Barack Obama this week extended the no-fishing areas around three remote pacific islands, eliciting praise from some, and disappointment from those who fear the move did not go far enough towards helping depleted species of fish recover. Last June, Obama had proposed to end all fishing ... MORE > >

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