Inter Press Service | News and Views from the Global South 2/2

Inter Press Service | News and Views from the Global South

In Venezuela, Two Presidents Vie for Power Humberto Márquez Venezuela entered a new and astonishing arena of political confrontation, with two presidents, Nicolás Maduro and Juan Guaidó, leading the forces vying for power, while Venezuelans once again are taking to the streets to demonstrate their weariness at the crisis, which has left them ... MORE > >

Mexico Opens Its doors to Central American Migrants Daniela Pastrana A few months ago, Candelario de JesúsChiquillo Cruz reached Mexico's southern border and ran into a fence reinforced with barbed wire, while a barrier of police officers sprayed him with gas. Today, he is walking freely over the bridge that crosses the Suchiate River, a natural border with ... MORE > >

Bullying is an “Infringement” on Children’s Rights Tharanga Yakupitiyage While rates have decreased, school violence and bullying is still a major global issue, contributing to lasting impacts on youth, a United Nations agency found. During the 2019 Education World Forum, taking place in the United Kingdom, the U.N. Educational, Scientific, and Cultural ... MORE > >

Electronic Devices Outnumber Humans & Trigger a Surge in E-Waste Thalif Deen The widespread innovations in modern digital technology have a devastating downside to it: the accumulation of over 50 million tonnes of electronics waste (e-waste) globally every year. And that’s greater in weight than all of the world’s commercial airliners ever made, or enough Eiffel ... MORE > >

Making Tourism More Responsible Ida Karlsson Long before Joy Daniels became the manager of a travel company she was cleaning rooms at a guesthouse. But after joining a Fair Trade-certified business, a place that valued its staff, in a few years she was soon promoted to manager. A Fair Trade certification is one of several initiatives in ... MORE > >

VIDEO: Solar Energy Begins to Light Up Favelas in Rio de Janeiro Mario Osava “We can’t work just to pay the electric bill,” complained José Hilario dos Santos, president of the Residents Association of Morro de Santa Marta, a favela or shantytown embedded in Botafogo, a traditional middle-class neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro. The high cost of electricity in the favela is ... MORE > >

Why Are so Many Humanitarian Crises Under-reported? Martin Scott According to a recent poll of aid agencies by the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the most under-reported crisis of 2018 was the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Jan Egeland, head of the Norwegian Refugee Council, commented that, ‘the brutality of the conflict is shocking, the ... MORE > >

Never Been a Worse Time to be a Journalist Ed Holt “I’ve never known a time when it was as bad as it is now,” says Beata Balogova, the Vice-Chair of the International Press Institute (IPI) and Editor in Chief of the Slovak Spectator Sme. “In terms of what’s going on with journalists, we’re in a very unique period,” she adds. Balogova explains ... MORE > >

Bringing Greener Pastures Back Home Tharanga Yakupitiyage One month on since the Global Compact for Migration was approved, civil society has highlighted the need to turn words into action, supporting those who have been displaced or forced to migrate as a result of environmental degradation. In December, over 160 countries adopted the landmark Global ... MORE > >

Eat Plants, Save the Planet Tharanga Yakupitiyage While the modern agricultural system has helped stave off famines and feed the world’s 7 billion residents, the way we eat and produce food is posing a threat to future populations’ food security. With an expected increase in population to 10 billion in 2050, ensuring food security is more ... MORE > >

Moving Beyond South Korea’s Hierarchal Business Structure for Sustainable Green Growth Ahn Mi Young Despite the international rise of South Korean businesses like Samsung, Hyundai and LG as global powerhouses, the corporate culture in this East Asian nation is often known to have a vertically rigid command line. “When you have a good idea, you’d rather wait until you earn trust from your ... MORE > >

Family Farming Wages a Difficult Battle in Argentina Daniel Gutman "Our philosophy is based on two principles: zero tolerance of pesticides or bosses," says Leandro Ladrú, while he puts tomatoes and carrots in the ecological bag held by a customer, in a large market in the Argentine capital, located between warehouses and rusty old railroad cars. Leandro and ... MORE > >

AUDIO: Experience With Irregular Migration is the Best Teacher Sam Olukoya The International Organization For Migration (IOM) has taken its campaign against irregular migration to schools in Nigeria. The school campaigns are meant to educate children who are among victims of human traffickers. After being recruited, victims of traffickers are made to embark on dangerous ... MORE > >

Survey on UN Sexual Abuse Shifts Focus on Virtual Fugitives from Justice Thalif Deen A survey of sexual harassment at the United Nations has uncomfortably shifted the focus to some of the senior UN officials who have either escaped censure – or punishment-- despite a rash of charges against them, including abuse and misconduct. Paula Donovan, a women’s rights activist and ... MORE > >

A New Spectre is Haunting Europe Roberto Savio After Theresa May’s defeat in the British parliament it is clear that a new spectre is haunting Europe. It is no longer the spectre of communism, which opens Marx’s Manifesto of 1848; it is the spectre of the failure of neoliberal globalisation, which reigned uncontested following the fall of the ... MORE > >