The Week With IPS 10/2

2015/10/2	Click here for the online version of this IPS newsletter
	Honduran Fishing Village Says Adios to Candles and Dirty Energy Thelma Mejía A small fishing village on the Caribbean coast of Honduras has become an example to be followed in renewable energies, after replacing candles and dirty costly energy based on fossil fuels with hydropower from a mini-dam, while reforesting the river basin. They now have round-the-clock electric ... MORE > >
	As the Mediterranean Refugee Crisis Endures, International Morality Ebbs Arlene Chang As the world suffers its biggest upheaval of human mobility, with 60 million people forced to desert their homes or countries due to persecution, armed conflicts, starvation and hunger that are a veritable danger to their lives, the response from the international community has been rather ... MORE > >
	Men Start to Make Women’s Struggles Their Own in Argentina Fabiana Frayssinet The meeting was about gender equality, but for once there were more men than women. It marked a watershed in the struggle in Argentina to make the commitment to equality more than just “a women’s thing.” The Buenos Aires meeting was organised by the Men for Equality (HxI) network, which emerged ... MORE > >
	Learning from Korea’s ‘Saemaul Undong’ to Achieve SDGs Aruna Dutt and Valentina Ieri More than 3.3 billion people live in rural areas around the world. Rural development is therefore of vital significance if the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development – “a plan of action for people, planet and prosperity” – is to become reality. A day after world leaders unanimously adopted 17 ... MORE > >
	Africa Must Depend Less on Development Aid, Says New Study Thalif Deen As the U.N.’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) reach their targeted date by the end of December, one of the lingering questions has long remained unanswered – at least, until now. Why did most African nations make progress in some, but failed to reach their targets in most others? A new ... MORE > >
	Electoral Revolution in Brazil Aimed at Neutralising Corporate Influence Mario Osava From now on, elections in Brazil will be more democratic, without corporate interference, which had become decisive and corruptive. A Sep. 17 Supreme Court ruling declared unconstitutional articles of the elections act that allow corporate donations to election campaigns. The 8-3 verdict came in ... MORE > >
	Opinion: We Can Overcome Poverty and Hunger by 2030 Jomo Kwame Sundaram Over three quarters of the extreme poor in the world live in the countryside. Reducing rural poverty will therefore require significantly higher rural incomes. Since most rural incomes are related to agriculture, raising agricultural productivity can help raise rural incomes all round. In the ... MORE > >
	Iran's nuclear deal and the regional countries Farhang Jahanpour Although some regional countries initially opposed the nuclear deal between Iran and the P5+1 (the United States, Russia, China, United Kingdom, France and Germany), once the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was signed by the two sides in July 2015, practically all regional countries ... MORE > >
	Opinion: India, Where Have All the Women Gone? N Chandra Mohan Women account for less than half of India’s population but their participation in the workforce is way below that of men. They account for 27 per cent of the workforce. If – and it is a big if – their number were to increase to the same level as men in the workforce, the country’s output of good ... MORE > >
	Mexican Government Depends More and More on Private Business Partners Emilio Godoy The Mexican government has increasingly turned to public–private partnerships (PPPs) to build infrastructure in the energy industry and other areas. But critics say this system operates under a cloak of opacity and is plagued by the discretional use of funds. As the 2013 energy reform, which ... MORE > >
	Pope’s Outspoken Views Rattle U.S. Conservatives but Not U.N. Thalif Deen Pope Francis’ outspoken views on some of the politically-charged hot button issues – including refugees, migration, human rights, climate change, Iran’s nuclear deal, U.S.-Cuban relations and the global arms trade – have touched a raw nerve in the United States. And most of these crucial and ... MORE > >