The Week with IPS 1/9

2015/1/9	Click here for the online version of this IPS newsletter
	Illiteracy Wears a Woman’s Face in El Salvador Edgardo Ayala At the age of 74, Carmen López has proven that it’s never too late to learn. She is one of the 412 people in this small town in central El Salvador who recently learned to read and write. “I was sad that I couldn’t write a letter or a receipt. But now I’m happy because I can,” she told IPS at ... MORE > >
	Integrated Farming: The Only Way to Survive a Rising Sea Manipadma Jena When the gentle clucking grows louder, 50-year-old Sukomal Mandal calls out to his wife, who is busy grinding ingredients for a fish curry. She gets up to thrust leafy green stalks through the netting of a coop and two-dozen shiny hens rush forward for lunch. In the Sundarbans, where the sea is ... MORE > >
	Family Farming Eases Food Shortages in Eastern Cuba Patricia Grogg Meat and vegetables are never missing from the dinner table of Damaris González and Omar Navarro, since they get almost all of their food from their farm, La Revelación, on the outskirts of the city of Santiago de Cuba, 765 km east of the Cuban capital. On the three hectares they have been ... MORE > >
	Organic Farming in India Points the Way to Sustainable Agriculture Jency Samuel Standing amidst his lush green paddy fields in Nagapatnam, a coastal district in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, a farmer named Ramajayam remembers how a single wave changed his entire life. The simple farmer was one of thousands whose agricultural lands were destroyed by the 2004 Asian ... MORE > >
	From the American Dream to the Nightmare of Deportation Edgardo Ayala Julio César Cordero’s American dream didn’t last long. He was trying to reach Houston, Texas as an undocumented immigrant but was detained in Acayucán in southeastern Mexico. And like thousands of other deported Salvadorans, he doesn’t know what the future will hold. Cordero’s head hangs low as ... MORE > >
	India’s ‘Manual Scavengers’ Rise Up Against Caste Discrimination Shai Venkatraman Watching Bittal Devi deftly weave threads of different colours into a vibrant patchwork quilt, it’s hard to imagine that this 46-year-old’s hands have spent the better part of their life cleaning toilets. Born in Sava, a village in the state of Rajasthan in northwestern India, Devi is from a ... MORE > >
	OPINION: Sabotaging U.S.-Cuba Détente in the Kennedy Era Robert F. Kennedy Jr I grew up in Hickory Hill, my family’s home in Virginia which was often filled with veterans of the failed Bay of Pigs invasion. My father Robert F. Kennedy, who admired the courage of these veterans and felt overwhelming guilt for having put the Cubans in harm’s way during the ill-planned ... MORE > >
	OPINION: JFK’s Secret Negotiations with Fidel Robert F. Kennedy Jr On the day of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination in November 1963, one of his emissaries was secretly meeting with Fidel Castro at Varadero Beach in Cuba to discuss terms for ending the U.S. embargo against the island and beginning the process of détente between the two countries. That ... MORE > >
	Children Starving to Death in Pakistan's Drought-Struck Tharparkar District Irfan Ahmed The main entrance to the Civil Hospital in Mithi, headquarters of the Tharparkar district in Pakistan’s southern Sindh Province, is blocked by a couple of men clad in traditional dress and turbans. They are trying to console a woman who is sobbing so heavily she has to gasp for breath. She lost ... MORE > >
	Argentina Celebrates New Year Free of Trans Fats Fabiana Frayssinet After adopting a new law banning trans fats in industrially processed foods, Argentina is starting out the new year with an improved public health outlook. The challenge now is for the food industry to incorporate the new rules, in an adaptation process that started four years ago. “This is an ... MORE > >
	Pakistan’s Tribal Areas Demand Repatriation of Afghan Refugees Ashfaq Yusufzai They number between two and three million; some have lived in makeshift shelters for just a few months, while others have roots that stretch much further back into history. Most fled to escape war, others simply ran away from joblessness. Whatever their reasons for being here, Afghan refugees in ... MORE > >
	Children Stolen by Chilean Dictatorship Finally Come to Light Marianela Jarroud The suspicion that babies of people detained and disappeared during Chile’s 1973-1990 dictatorship were stolen is growing stronger in Chile, a country that up to now has not paid much attention to the phenomenon. “There has always been a suspicion that something similar to what happened in ... MORE > >