The Week With IPS 11/20

2015/11/20	Click here for the online version of this IPS newsletter
	Where Technology and Medicine Meet in Rural Zambia James Jeffrey When health officer Kennedy Mulenga was faced with a male patient developing breasts at the remote Ngwerere Clinic 30km north of the Zambian capital, Lusaka, he logged onto Virtual Doctors to get help solving the medical mystery. After taking notes and creating a patient file he took a photo ... MORE > >
	Latin American Legislators Find New Paths to Fight Hunger Aramis Castro and Milagros Salazar With eight specific commitments aimed at pushing through laws and policies on food security and sovereignty, family farming and school feeding programmes, legislators from 17 countries closed the Sixth Forum of the Parliamentary Front Against Hunger in Latin America and the Caribbean. During the ... MORE > >
Open Defecation to End by 2025, Vows UN Chief, Marking World Toilet Day Thalif Deen The state of the world’s toilets reveals the good, the bad and the ugly – but not necessarily in that order. As the UN commemorated its annual World Toilet Day on November 19, a new study says, contrary to popular belief, not everyone in the rich nations of the developed world has access to a ... MORE > >
	Opinion: Progress Against Undernutrition, But Uneven Jomo Kwame Sundaram At the end of 2014, an estimated 795 million people – one in nine people worldwide – were estimated to be chronically hungry. All but 15 million of the world’s hungry live in developing countries, i.e., 780 million are in developing countries, where the share of the hungry has declined by less than ... MORE > >
	Paris, the Refugees and Europe Roberto Savio The focus on terrorism is obscuring the issues of refugees, and it is important to consider its impact on Europe, after the shock of Paris. Roberto SavioOf course, the impact of terrorism in the daily life of ordinary citizens is going to increase the culture of checks and controls in place ... MORE > >
	Jamaica’s Aging Water Systems Falter Under Intense Heat and Drought Zadie Neufville This past summer Jamaicans sweltered through their third consecutive year of reduced rainfall resulting in wild fires, a crop-killing drought and daily water cuts. As temperatures exceeded 93.7 F (34.2 Celsius) in several areas, the Meteorological Service urged Jamaicans to “Wake up to the ... MORE > >
	“Jasmine Revolution” Challenges Male Domination of Tea Trade Unions K.S. Harikrishnan Until September this year, Lissie Sunny was not a name known to the Indian public. All of this changed when this lean and dark woman, working for over a quarter century plucking tea leaves in the misty mountain slopes of southern India finally had enough and took on one of the most powerful tea ... MORE > >
	Africa Clinches Mega Development Prospects Jeffrey Moyo The Week of the Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa (PIDA) in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, focusing on the continent’s infrastructural development ended today with resolutions that could catapult huge advances for Africa. The PIDA Week, 13 to 17 November, is the first of its kind ... MORE > >
	Analysis: More Countries Want More Babies Joseph Chamie and Barry Mirkin Concerned with the consequences of demographic decline and population ageing, especially with respect to economic growth, national defence and pensions and health care for the elderly, a growing number of governments are seeking to raise birth rates. Whereas nearly 40 years ago 13 countries had ... MORE > >
	Zimbabweans Align with Climate-Smart Agriculture Amid Food Deficits Jeffrey Moyo With droughts wreaking havoc in vast areas of Zimbabwe, a majority of people here are fast falling in line with climate-smart agriculture (CSA) as food deficits continue. CSA is the agricultural practice that reduces exposure, sensitivity or vulnerability to climate variability or change, ... MORE > >
	Uruguay Puts High Priority on Renewable Energies Veronica Firme Uruguay is modifying its energy mix with the aim of achieving carbon neutrality by 2030, by means of a strategy that bolsters non-conventional clean energy sources through public-private partnerships and new investment. A majority of this South American country’s energy already comes from renewable ... MORE > >
	Opinion: China’s New South-South Funds – a Global Game Changer? Martin Khor South-South cooperation is usually seen as a poor second fiddle to North-South aid in the world of development assistance. Indeed, developing countries’ policy makers themselves insist that South-South cooperation can only supplement but not replace North-South cooperation. Martin ... MORE > >
	African Experts Say the Continent Must Address Livestock Methane Emissions Miriam Gathigah Increasing calls for Africa to reduce methane emissions from livestock continue to be met with controversy, and livestock scientists say methane is a forgotten short-term climate pollutant with significant global warming potential that Africa cannot continue to overlook. Critics say in the ... MORE > >
	Gay Cruising Spots a Challenge for HIV/AIDS Prevention in Cuba Ivet González When night falls, young men can be seen sitting on a dismantled bus stop on a remote hill far from the centre of the Cuban capital. Later they climb uphill to have sex with other men in the thick forest. “On my way home from work, I go by that place, and I always see people gathered at the old ... MORE > >
Nepali Farmers Get Climate Smart Shahani Singh Bimala Bajagain, a farmer and mother of three, wears a fading red kurta and appears older than her age at 35. She offers us plates of salted guavas at the porch of her quake-damaged house. By mid-day, October’s warm sun boils over Kalchebesi village of Kavrepalanchok district. Bajagain ... MORE > >