The Week with IPS 12/6

2013/12/6	Click here for the online version of this IPS newsletter
	Gaza Returns to Donkey Days Mohammed Omer The garbage trucks of Gaza city are at a standstill due to an ongoing fuel shortage affecting all aspects of daily life, including garbage collection, sewage and waste disposal and other vital services. But the local donkeys are here to help. Abu Hesham on his donkey cart won’t be able to clear ... MORE > >
	The Asia-Africa Link Is IT Kalinga Seneviratne Only 16 percent of Africa’s population of over a billion is online. But as Internet and mobile phone connectivity grows rapidly, the continent wants to join forces with Asian powerhouses to change its digital landscape. While offering its vast market, Africa hopes to leverage Asia’s information ... MORE > >
	Accra’s High Rents Means Ghanaians Lose Billie McTernan Across Accra, Ghana's capital city, adverts for letting property can be found all over. But for as many placards there are, you will get just as many verbal warnings from locals cautioning people to beware of swindling agents. With a growing population and a lack of housing to meet the ... MORE > >
	Wage Hike in Haiti Doesn't Address Factory Abuses Jane Regan Haiti’s minimum wage will nudge up 12 percent on Jan. 1, from 4.65 to 5.23 dollars (or 200 to 225 gourdes) per day. Calculated hourly, it will go from 58 to 65 cents, before taxes. But the raise will not affect Haiti’s 30,000 assembly factory workers, who are supposed to already be receiving ... MORE > >
	Europe Sending Armies to Stop Immigrants Apostolis Fotiadis A Nov. 19 paper by the European External Action Service (EEAS), the EU diplomatic corps, considers the possibility of the European military getting involved in the south Mediterranean in an effort to curb the influx of irregular migrants and refugees into Europe. The idea for a military ... MORE > >
	Argentine Protesters vs Monsanto: “The Monster is Right on Top of Us” Fabiana Frayssinet The people of this working-class suburb of Córdoba in Argentina’s central farming belt stoically put up with the spraying of the weed-killer glyphosate on the fields surrounding their neighbourhood. But the last straw was when U.S. biotech giant Monsanto showed up to build a seed plant. The ... MORE > >
	Unexploded Shells Tearing Lives Apart Athar Parvaiz A vast and picturesque meadow called Tosamaidan, about 112 km west of Jammu and Kashmir’s capital Srinagar, has now become the rallying point for hundreds of villagers who want the artillery exercises being carried out there by the Indian Army to stop. For, the unexploded shells of Tosamaidan ... MORE > >
	Saving Children From Loggers Catherine Wilson Logging is the largest industry in the Solomon Islands, an archipelago located northwest of Fiji, where 80 percent of the islands are covered in tropical rainforest. But, although timber accounts for 60 percent of this South Pacific nation’s export earnings, most local communities have experienced ... MORE > >
	Ending AIDS in the City Where It Began Samuel Oakford Four hundred Eighth Avenue, home to the largest welfare centre for people with AIDS in New York, is the kind of grey, drab city building that seems like it was dragged, scowling, into the 21st Century. Sandwiched between the banal hustle of Penn Station and the outer reaches of Manhattan’s once ... MORE > >
	When Calamity Strikes, Think Local Malini Shankar More than a month after Cyclone Phailin battered Orissa, tribes in the eastern Indian coastal state are still feeling its wrath. Besides the damage to their homes and hearths, it has also meant a loss of their traditional food. “Calamities like Cyclone Phailin affect all equally, but the tribes ... MORE > >
	Skateboarding Can Be Empowering Simba Shani Kamaria Russeau An array of colourful quarter pipes, bank ramps and a fun box come to life as a clutch of Cambodian youngsters do balancing tricks, kick-flips and kick turns. The all-girl session at a skating facility near the Russian Market here is facilitated by 20-year-old Kov Chansangva, popularly known as ... MORE > >
	Paraguay’s ‘Indignados’ Win a Round Against Congress Natalia Ruiz Diaz A few hours before a human chain was to surround the Paraguayan Congress on Thursday, Senator Víctor Bogado, accused of fraud and misuse of public funds, was stripped of his parliamentary immunity from prosecution. On Nov. 15, an earlier vote in which 23 of the 45 members of the Senate voted for ... MORE > >
	Global Trade Winds Leave the Poor Gasping Amantha Perera For years, it was the power chamber at the headquarters of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in Geneva - the Director General’s Conference Room, more popularly known as the Green Room, where a handful of delegates would gather for important discussions and meetings. The traditional power quad - ... MORE > >