The Week With IPS 5/20/2016

2016/5/20

Climate Change Compounds Humanitarian Crises in Global South Diego Arguedas Ortiz As the Global South works to overcome a history of weak institutions, armed conflict and poverty-driven forced exodus, key causes of its humanitarian crises, developing countries now have to also fight to keep global warming from compounding their problems. “Disaster Risk Reduction and climate ... MORE > >

Will Canada Recognise Rights of Indigenous Peoples in Developing Countries Too? Aruna Dutt While Canada’s long-awaited support for the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples brought hope and celebration last week, it's not yet clear whether the rights of Indigenous people in developing countries harmed by Canadian mining companies will also be included. The Special ... MORE > >

Now 1 in 2 World’s Refugees Live in Urban Areas Baher Kamal It is true that millions of refugees, especially in Africa and the Middle East, reside in camps. But in all they represent only one-quarter of the total number of refugees. Meanwhile, more than 1 in 2 of all the world’s refugees live in slums or in informal settlements and on the fringes of ... MORE > >

A Precarious Fate for Climate Migrants in India Neeta Lal After the sea swallowed up her home and family in the Bangladeshi coastal district of Bhola along the Bay of Bengal, farmer Sanjeela Sheikh was heartbroken. Stripped of all her belongings, her fields swamped and her loved ones dead, she contemplated suicide. But good sense prevailed. The frail ... MORE > >

Many Cities Don't Know How Dangerous Their Air Pollution Is Lyndal Rowlands China and India are not the only countries with an air pollution problem, 98 percent of cities in developing countries don’t meet World Health Organization (WHO) air quality standards according to research published by the UN body last week. Yet, although almost all cities that measure air ... MORE > >

A Latin American Humanitarian Emergency Invisible to the World Daniela Pastrana “This is a humanitarian crisis,” said Bertha Zúñiga Cáceres, referring to the generalised violence in Mexico and in Honduras and other countries of Central America, which has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives and is a product of transnational crime, but is invisible to the international ... MORE > >

A Refugee Crisis with No End in Sight Silvia Boarini "We don't want charity, we want a long-term solution." That's what a group of Palestinian refugees who fled the war in Syria and found safety in Gaza told IPS last November. Today, their sentiment continues to be echoed in Syria and in camps and urban centres hosting refugees across the ... MORE > >

'Human Suffering Has Reached Staggering Levels’ Baher Kamal “Human suffering from the impacts of armed conflicts and disasters has reached staggering levels.” With these one dozen or few words, the United Nations Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, briefly but sharply portrayed the current humanitarian drama, explaining why the UN has decided to hold the ... MORE > >

Industrial-Level Aid Logistics in Colombia’s Decades-Long Humanitarian Disaster Constanza Vieira “If you’re going to talk about Colombia and the peace process, do it somewhere else,” was heard at a regional preparatory meeting for the World Humanitarian Summit, according to Ramón Rodríguez, with the Colombian government’s Unit for Attention and Integral Reparation for Victims ... MORE > >

OPINION: Fear Is not a Good Counsellor Roberto Savio A new spectre is haunting the world. It is not the spectre of communism, as Marx’s Manifesto famously proclaimed. It is the spectre of fear, which has increasingly become the rationale behind politics. And, as the old proverb says, fear is not a good counselor. Roberto SavioLet us take, for ... MORE > >

The Real Heresy of London’s New Mayor Is that He Is a Liverpool Fan? Farhana Haque Rahman, Director General, Inter Press Service Sadiq Khan is not just the new mayor of London, but happens to have individually won more votes than any other politician in British history. Prime ministers and members of Parliament run in their home districts, where the total number of ballots are fewer. Farhana Haque RahmanMunicipal ... MORE > >

Middle East - The Mother of All Humanitarian Crises Baher Kamal When, in March 2015, delegates from the Middle East met in Amman for their regional consultations round in preparation for the May 23-24 World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul, most likely what they had in mind is the fact that their region was --and still is-- the dramatic set of “the mother of all ... MORE > >

Justice for Berta Caceres Incomplete Without Land Rights: UN Rapporteur Lyndal Rowlands The murder of Honduran Indigenous woman Berta Caceres is only too familiar to Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. All around the world, Indigenous peoples are murdered, raped and kidnapped when their lands fall in the path of deforestation, ... MORE > >