Inter Press Service | News and Views from the Global South

Inter Press Service | News and Views from the Global South

Beaten and Tortured for a Ransom, Lured by the Promise of a Livelihood Rafiqul Islam After his father passed away two years ago, the burden of caring for a six-member family rested on the shoulders of the now 19-year-old Farhad Hossain. He had no clue how he would support his family and pay for the education of his four younger siblings. Capitalising on Hossain’s plight, a ... MORE > >

UN’s 75th Anniversary Shadowed by Right-Wing Nationalism, Widespread Authoritarianism & Budgetary Cuts Thalif Deen When the six much-ballyhooed high-level UN meetings concluded late September, there were mixed feelings about the final outcomes. And civil society organizations (CSOs), who were mostly disappointed with the results, are now gearing themselves for two upcoming key climate summit meetings: COP25 ... MORE > >

Ghana's Grains and Groundnuts Face Increasing Contamination Amid Increasing Temperatures Albert Oppong-Ansah Adwoa Frimpomaah, a smallholder farmer from Dandwa, a farming community in Nkoranza, in Ghana's Bono East Region, and her two children have been consuming insect-infested and discoloured grains produced from their three-acre farm. “Just look, I harvested this maize a week ago and after ... MORE > >

Holding Transnational Corporations Accountable for Human Rights Abuses Shayda Naficy and Ebuata Pholip Jakpor In Geneva this week, a treaty process is underway that promises to usher in a new era for human rights around the globe. The process—the intergovernmental working group on the binding treaty on transnational corporations and human rights—could mean that for the first time, human rights would be ... MORE > >

Let Plants be Thy Medicine - You Are What You Eat Esther Ngumbi and Ifeanyi Nsofor United Nations World Food Day is celebrated around the world on October 16 under the theme: “Our Actions ARE Our Future. Healthy Diets for a Zero Hunger World”. This theme is timely, especially, because across Africa and around the world, there has been a gradual rise in malnutrition and ... MORE > >

Election Death Toll Underscores Afghanistan’s Fragile Democracy James Reinl A wave of bloody Taliban attacks aimed at derailing Afghanistan’s recent elections killed and maimed hundreds of people, including children, the United Nations mission to the country said on Tuesday. The U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, known as UNAMA, documented some 100 attacks in the ... MORE > >

OECD Tax Reform Proposal Could Be Better Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram The OECD Secretariat published its proposed ‘unified approach’ to reform international tax rules to address tax challenges posed by digitalization on 9 October 2019. Under current rules, there is little chance of a company being taxed without its physical presence in the country concerned. But ... MORE > >

Why Are So Many Nepali Workers in Korea Committing Suicide? Ki Mindo For many Nepalis, it is dream to find work in Korea where they expect to earn many times more than in Nepal. Yet, there is a dark side to the Korean Dream: between 2009 to 2018, there were 143 deaths of Nepali workers in South Korean soil, and of them 43 were suicides. The 31% suicide rate is ... MORE > >

AUDIO: How the Oceans and the Cryosphere are Under Threat and What it Means for Africa- IPCC Author Explains Isaiah Esipisu “Special reports come to address issues that need deeper understanding and deeper research,” Dr James Kairo, one of the lead authors of the ‘Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate,’ a special report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), told IPS. The ... MORE > >

VIDEO: World Food Day 2019 - “Our Actions Are Our Future” IPS World Desk Globalization and urbanization have had a staggering impact on human history, especially over the last decade. The world's population living in urban areas was less than 5 percent in 1800. According to the the United Nations, that number increased to 47 percent by the year 2000. In ten years ... MORE > >

Making a Whale of a Difference to Marine Conservation Neena Bhandari The thrill of watching a whale up close or schools of dolphins frolicking in an ocean are much sought after experiences today, boosting the demand for tours that provide people the opportunity to see these marine animals in their natural habitats. But becoming a major tourist drawcard has also ... MORE > >

Huge moment for Ethiopia as Abiy Ahmed wins Nobel Peace prize James Jeffrey Ethiopia found itself in the global spotlight for all the right reasons after Abiy Ahmed, its young, dynamic prime minister was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Awarded since 1901 for outstanding contributions to peace, the 2019 prize recognised Abiy’s “efforts to achieve peace and international ... MORE > >

For Some in Kashmir Marriage Equates to Sexual Slavery Umar Manzoor Shah Haseena Akhtar was only 13 when an agent told her parents that they could earn a good amount of money by letting her marry a Kashmiri man. The man was, however, three times older than Akhtar, the agent said. Akhtar’s parents, who lived in the poverty-stricken region of West Bengal (an eastern ... MORE > >

Wanted: Bold Leadership by António Guterres: On Sustainable Funding of United Nations Kul Chandra Gautam The United Nations is faced with a financial crisis once again. Leaders of as many as 64 countries who paraded and pontificated at the UN General Assembly and its multiple Summit meetings in September 2019 were deadbeats, who had not paid their dues in full to the UN for this year. Many have ... MORE > >

Austerity, the “New Normal” Isabel Ortiz and Matthew Cummins While this week Ministers of Finance and economists meet in Washington to confront global economic challenges at the IMF and World Bank Annual Meetings, the majority of the world population lives with austerity cuts and see their living standards deteriorating. World leaders must reverse this ... MORE > >