The Week with IPS 9/8/2017

2017/9/8	Click here for the online version of this IPS newsletter
	How Aid in Cash, Not Goods, Averted a Famine in Somalia Roshni Majumdar In February, when the government of Somalia sounded an alarm to the UN about risks of a famine in the country, the UN’s Office of Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), besides quickly shuffling a response team, was acting from a steep sense of history. The Office, instead of sending out ... MORE > >
	Indian Journalist’s Murder: The Ultimate Form of Press Censorship? Manipadma Jena Dauntlessly crusading against curbs on freedom of speech, fifty-five-year-old Indian journalist Gauri Lankesh was gunned down at her very doorstep in Bengaluru city on the evening of Sep. 5, taking three bullets of the seven fired in her lungs and heart. She was shot from just three feet ... MORE > >
	How Ivory Fell into the Hands of Organized Criminal Syndicates Dr Richard Thomas “Ivory is like a drug and you have to be careful with it. If you are serious and desire it, you can get all you want, but you have to be patient and act very carefully,” a Cameroonian man selling ivory items from a network of shops across Central Africa, told TRAFFIC investigators in 2014. A ... MORE > >
	Dominica’s Geothermal Dream About to Become Reality Desmond Brown The tiny Caribbean island of Dominica has moved one step closer to its dream of constructing a geothermal plant, a project that is expected to reduce the country’s dependence on fossil fuels. The Dominica government is contributing 40.5 million dollars towards the project and has been seeking to ... MORE > >
	Scaling up Development Finance Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram The Business and Sustainable Development Commission has estimated that achievement of Agenda 2030 for the Sustainable Development Goals will require US-3 trillion of additional investments annually compared to current world income of around US5 trillion. This is a conservative estimate; annual ... MORE > >
	Ethiopia’s Internally Displaced Overlooked Amid Refugee Crises James Jeffrey Grasping its limp leg, a woman drags the carcass of one of her few remaining black-headed sheep away from her family’s domed shelter fashioned out of sticks and fabric that stands alone amid the desiccated scrubland a few kilometers from the town of Dolo Odo in the southeast of Ethiopia near the ... MORE > >
	Robots: A Solution to Declining and Aging Populations? Joseph Chamie Are humanoid robots or androids a solution to declining and aging populations? Given the prospects of demographic decline and population aging coupled with growing opposition to immigration, countries are increasingly turning to and investing in advanced robotics and androids to address shrinking ... MORE > >
	Small Entrepreneurs Emerge as Backbone of Bangladesh’s Rural Economy Shahiduzzaman She was born in the early 1950’s to an ultra-poor family in Kundihar, a remote village of Banaripara of Barisal division in Bangladesh. She was a beautiful baby and her father named her ‘Shahndah Rani’ which means ‘Queen of Evenings’. But in reality her life was far from that of a queen. Born ... MORE > >
	Climate-Smart Agriculture Urgently Needed in Africa Baher Kamal Africa contributes only 4 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, while six of the 10 most affected countries by climate change are in Africa, warns a major agricultural research for development partnership, while stressing the urgent need to scale up climate-smart agriculture, improve ... MORE > >
	Latin America Calls for Free Movement of Persons in Global Compact on Migration Orlando Milesi Latin America and the Caribbean called for the free movement of persons to be included in the Global Compact on Migration, which will be negotiated within the United Nations in 2018, in the first meeting held by any of the world’s regions to decide on the position to be adopted on the future ... MORE > >
	More Than 18,000 Rohingya Flee as Violence Renews Tharanga Yakupitiyage A surge in deadly violence in Myanmar has forced over 18,000 Rohingya Muslims to flee in less than one week, a migration agency said. The movement began after the Southeast Asian nation’s government launched “clearance operations” following attacks on security posts on Aug. 25 by an armed ... MORE > >
	US Pressure Keeps Palestinians Blacklisted at UN Thalif Deen When Secretary-General Antonio Guterres proposed the appointment of former Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad as UN’s Special Representative in Libya back in February, the proposal was shot down by US Ambassador Nikki Haley, purely because he was a Palestinian. Credit: ... MORE > >