The Week With IPS 2/13

	Cancer Locks a Deadly Grip on Africa, Yet It’s Barely Noticed Jeffrey Moyo Hidden by the struggles to defeat Ebola, malaria and drug-resistant tuberculosis, a silent killer has been moving across the African continent, superseding infections of HIV and AIDS. World Cancer Day commemorated on Feb. 4 may have come and gone, but the spread of cancer in Africa has been ... MORE > >
	Warming, Wildfires and Worries Joseph Chamie World leaders from government, finance, business, science and civil society are attempting to negotiate a legally binding and universal agreement on climate change at the upcoming 21st United Nations Climate Change Conference being convened in Paris in December. If achieved, which appears ... MORE > >
	U.N. Climate Talks Advance Link Between Gender and Climate Change Denise M. Fontanilla A week of climate negotiations in Geneva, Switzerland Feb. 8-13 are setting the stage for what promises to be a busy year. In order to reach an agreement in Paris by December, negotiators will have to climb a mountain of contentious issues which continue to overshadow the talks. One such issue ... MORE > >
	Women Pick Up the Slack as Fishing Declines on India’s Southern Coasts Nachammai Raman Geeta Selvaraj and a few other women take turns to prepare meals with just one large gas cooker in a tiny shop. The piquant smell of masala wafts out to the crowded street to mix with plumes of vehicle exhaust and tantalize customers, who are mostly from the surrounding area of Nagapattinam, a ... MORE > >
	Cuban Agriculture Needs Better Roads Ivet González When it rains, trucks get stuck in the mud on the poor roads in this rural municipality in eastern Cuba. The local population needs more and better roads to improve their lives and help give a much-needed boost to the country’s farming industry. “When the roads are fixed, living conditions and ... MORE > >
	U.N. Touts 2015 as Milestone Year for World Body Thalif Deen The United Nations, in a sustained political hype, is touting 2015 as a likely breakthrough year for several key issues on its agenda - primarily development financing, climate change, sustainable development, disaster risk-reduction and nuclear non-proliferation. At the same time, the world ... MORE > >
	Diabetes Epidemic Threatens Development Gains in Pacific Islands Catherine Wilson The rapid rise of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in the Pacific Islands, which now cause 75 percent of all deaths, is one of the greatest impediments to post-2015 development, health ministers in the region claim. The Western Pacific has the world’s highest regional prevalence of diabetes, an ... MORE > >
	Inequality Fuels HIV Epidemic in the Caribbean Desmond Brown At 49 years old, Edison Liburd has established himself as one of Antigua and Barbuda’s most recognisable artists. But Liburd was not always in the spotlight. In fact, you could say he was a man in hiding. “I have been infected with the HIV virus for about 24 years. I got my first HIV test done ... MORE > >
	In the Shadow of Displacement, Forest Tribes Look to Sustainable Farming Stella Paul Laxman, a 10-year-old Koya tribal boy, looks admiringly at a fenced-in vegetable patch behind his home in southern India’s Andhra Pradesh state. Velvety-green and laden with vegetables, the half-acre patch is where Laxman’s family gets their daily quota of nutritious food. But one day soon it ... MORE > >
	Rural Towns in El Salvador Join “War Tourism” Trend Edgardo Ayala The memory of a priest killed shortly before civil war broke out in El Salvador is so alive in this small town that it is now the main attraction in a community tourist initiative aimed at providing employment and injecting money into the local economy. The Historical Memory Tourist Route is the ... MORE > >
	Pakistan’s Domestic Workers Long For Low Pay and Overwork to Be a Thing of the Past Zofeen Ebrahim Sumaira Salamat, a mother of three in her mid-40s, works every day from ten in the morning until half-past two in the afternoon. She travels between three homes, and in each one she dusts, sweeps, washes utensils, and does the laundry. For her efforts, she earns about 3,000 rupees (29 dollars) per ... MORE > >
	Drug Violence Leaves a String of Ghost Towns in Mexico Daniela Pastrana Cerro del Águila, which two centuries ago was a refuge for independence fighters in Mexico, is now a stronghold of organised crime groups engaged in turf wars for control of the prosperous poppy trade and trafficking routes, which have left a string of ghost towns in their wake. From Águila ... MORE > >
	Youth Unemployment, Income Inequality Keep Rising Josh Butler Global youth unemployment may be “six or seven times” what the International Labor Organisation’s (ILO) latest figures state, due to what a youth advocacy group calls a flawed system of assessment. The ILO recently released its 2015 World Employment and Social Outlook (WESO) report, and ... MORE > >
	Zimbabwe’s Famed Forests Could Soon Be Desert Jeffrey Moyo There’s a buzz in Zimbabwe’s lush forests, home to many animal species, but it’s not bees, bugs or other wildlife. It’s the sound of a high-speed saw, slicing through the heart of these ancient stands to clear land for tobacco growing, to log wood for commercial export and to supply local area ... MORE > >