Inter Press Service | News and Views from the Global South

Inter Press Service | News and Views from the Global South

IN PICTURES: Ethiopia Juggles Refugees and Shoppers Coming from Eritrea Amid New Peace James Jeffrey The sudden peace between Ethiopia and Eritrea, and the opening of their previously closed and dangerous border, sent shockwaves of hope and optimism throughout the two countries. But a new issue has arisen: whether Eritreans coming into Ethiopia should still be classed as refugees. “Asmara! ... MORE > >

A Truly Global Effort is Needed to Eradicate FGM by 2030 Divya Srinivasan According to official data on the global prevalence of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) released by UNICEF there are 200 million women and girls in the world who have been cut. Shocking though this statistic is, it seriously underestimates the nature and scale of the problem. In 2015, when the ... MORE > >

Beware Proposed E-commerce Rules Chakravarthi Raghavan and Jomo Kwame Sundaram In Davos in late January, several powerful governments and their allies announced their intention to launch new negotiations on e-commerce. Unusually, the intention is to launch the plurilateral negotiations in the World Trade Organization (WTO), an ostensibly multilateral organization, setting ... MORE > >

Q&A: Continuous Struggle for the Caribbean to be Heard in Climate Change Discussions Desmond Brown In recent years Caribbean Community (CARICOM) countries have experienced escalated climate change impacts from hurricanes, tropical storms and other weather-related events thanks to global warming of 1.0 ° Celsius (C) above pre-industrial levels. And it has had adverse effects on particularly ... MORE > >

As Treaties Collapse, Can We Still Prevent a Nuclear Arms Race? Christine Muttonen, Jacqueline Cabasso & Alyn Ware The United States last week officially announced it is walking away from the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, an agreement made between the USA and the Soviet Union in 1987 to eliminate a whole class of nuclear weapons that had been deployed in Europe and had put the continent on a ... MORE > >

Q&A: The Nature of Value vs the Value of Nature Tharanga Yakupitiyage Humans have long had a varied and complicated relationship with nature—from its aesthetic value to its economic value to its protective value. What if you could measure and analyse these values? One group is trying to do just that. Over 150 years ago, philosopher Henry David Thoreau highlighted ... MORE > >

Fighting Machismo in Latin America: The Formula to Combat Femicides Mariela Jara Peru began the year with 11 femicides in January, despite progress made in laws and statutes and mass demonstrations against gender-based violence. This situation is also seen in other Latin American countries, raising the need to delve deeper into the causes of the phenomenon. Gladys Acosta, ... MORE > >

Bullets Against Pots and Pans in the Crackdown on Venezuela's Protests Humberto Márquez The protests in Venezuela demanding an end to the presidency of Nicolás Maduro in the last 10 days of January, whose soundtrack was the sound of banging on pots and pans in working-class neighbourhoods, had a high human cost: more than 40 deaths, dozens wounded and about a thousand detainees, ... MORE > >

Nigerians Hear How Migrating Irregularly "Is Like Killing Yourself” Sam Olukoya “Don’t assume if you attempt the journey your fortune will change for the better,” a woman says over the public address system in the crowded Uselu market in Benin City, the capital of Nigeria’s Edo State. “Many embarked on the journey and never made it. Many people are dying in the Sahara ... MORE > >

Making Communities Drought Resilient Desmond Brown The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD’s) Drought Initiative is in full swing with dozens of countries signing up to plan their drought programme. The Drought Initiative involves taking action on national drought preparedness plans, regional efforts to reduce drought ... MORE > >

Mexican Village Wants to Turn Thermoelectric Plant into Solar Panel Factory Emilio Godoy Social organisations in the central Mexican municipality of Yecapixtla managed to halt the construction of a large thermoelectric plant in the town and are now designing a project to convert the installation into a solar panel factory, which would bring the area socioeconomic and environmental ... MORE > >

Gender Gap Made Worse by Land Degradation Desmond Brown In parts of the world where the gender gap is already wide, land degradation places women and girls at even greater risk. The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) framework for Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN), highlights that land degradation in developing countries ... MORE > >