The Week with IPS 11/21

Inequality in Mexico Is All About Wages Emilio Godoy Sandra G. works Monday through Saturday in a beauty salon on the south side of Mexico City, where she earns slightly more than the minimum wage, which in this country is just five dollars a day. The 30-year-old, who studied cosmetology and asked that her last name not be published, does beauty ... MORE > > Pakistani Sikhs Back in the ‘Dark Ages’ of Religious Persecution Ashfaq Yusufzai Balwan Singh, an 84-year-old shopkeeper living in Pakistan’s northern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, is well past retirement age, but any illusions he may have had about living out his golden years in peace and security have long since been dashed. The elderly man is a member of Pakistan’s ... MORE > > IPS Honours Crusader for Nuclear Abolition Roger Hamilton-Martin Jayantha Dhanapala was awarded the IPS International Achievement Award for Nuclear Disarmament Monday at the United Nations in New York. Dhanapala, U.N. Under-Secretary-General for Disarmament Affairs until 2003, has remained committed to the goal of a nuclear weapons-free world since leaving ... MORE > > Depression Casts Cloak of Infertility Over Kashmir Valley Shazia Yousuf It was almost midnight when Mushtaq Margoob woke up to the incessant ringing of his phone. It was his patient, a young woman whom Margoob, a renowned Kashmiri psychiatrist and head of the department of psychiatry at the only psychiatric hospital in Kashmir, had been treating for depression for many ... MORE > > Shale Oil Fuels Indigenous Conflict in Argentina Fabiana Frayssinet The boom in unconventional fossil fuels has revived indigenous conflicts in southwest Argentina. Twenty-two Mapuche communities who live on top of Vaca Muerta, the geological formation where the reserves are located, complain that they were not consulted about the use of their ancestral lands, both ... MORE > > Iranians Keep Hope Alive for Final Nuclear Deal Jasmin Ramsey In the United States, the negotiations aimed at a final deal between world powers and Iran over its nuclear programme—in a crucial phase this week—are far from the minds of average people. But for many Iranians, the talks hold the promise of a better future. “I really hope for a fair agreement,” ... MORE > > Will New Climate Treaty Be a Thriller, or Shaggy Dog Story? Stephen Leahy This December, 195 nations plus the European Union will meet in Lima for two weeks for the crucial U.N. Conference of the Parties on Climate Change, known as COP 20. The hope in Lima is to produce the first complete draft of a new global climate agreement. However, this is like writing a book with ... MORE > > Building Disaster Resilience Amidst Rampant Poverty Amantha Perera Of the thousands of landslide-prone villages he has visited and worked with, R M S Bandara, a high-ranking official from Sri Lanka’s National Building Resources Organisation (NBRO), says only one has made him sit up and take note. Keribathgala, located in the Ratnapura District about 120 km ... MORE > > Ebola Outbreak Affects Key Development Areas in Sierra Leone Lansana Fofana The outbreak of the deadly Ebola epidemic in Sierra Leone has badly affected the West African country’s move towards meeting key development goals. Agriculture, which is the mainstay of the economy, has been the worst hit as many farmers have succumbed to the disease and many more have ... MORE > > Fighting the Islamic State On the Air Karlos Zurutuza There is daily news broadcasting at 9 in the evening and a live programme every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. For the time being, that is what Mosul´s only TV channel has to offer from its headquarters in Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan. "We are still on the air only because we managed ... MORE > > Pushing the Voice of Syrian Women For a New Future Shelly Kittleson For most Syrian women, the war has been a disaster. For some, it has also been liberating. For Yasmine Merei, managing editor of the Syrian women’s magazine Saiedet Souria, the upset of traditional family roles and the shaking off of a culture of fear have wrought positive effects. Many ... MORE > > Women’s Safety Schemes Go Mobile in India Sujoy Dhar It was 9:45 pm when 23-year-old Manira Chaudhury, a final-year Master’s student in New Delhi, who was traveling home in a rickshaw, pressed a button on her smart phone that sent out emergency alerts to two of her closest friends. Immediately, two frantic calls followed. “I am safe,” Chaudhury ... MORE > >