Inter Press Service | News and Views from the Global South

Inter Press Service | News and Views from the Global South

Nigerian Military Targeted Journalists’ Phones, Computers with “forensic search” for Sources Jonathan Rozen Hamza Idris, an editor with the Nigerian Daily Trust, was at the newspaper’s central office on January 6 when the military arrived looking for him. Soldiers with AK47s walked between the newsroom desks repeating his name, he told CPJ. It was the second raid on the paper that day; the first ... MORE > >

Insurance Scheme Offers Hope for Drought-stricken African Farmers James Reinl A partnership between United Nations and African Union (AU) agencies will help African economies insure themselves against the droughts and other extreme weather events that plague the continent, organisers say. The AU’s African Risk Capacity (ARC) and the U.N. Convention to Combat ... MORE > >

Bangladesh's Climate Change Victims Safeguard the Sundarbans' Endangered Dolphins Rafiqul Islam Israfil Boyati lives along the shoreline of the Bay of Bengal. In the past he used to catch fish in the canals and rivers of Bangladesh’s Sundarbans mangrove forest — one of the world’s largest and habitat to many endangered species, including the Bengal tigers and freshwater dolphins. But ... MORE > >

Europe Should Rethink Assumptions about African Migrants: UN James Reinl Sub-Saharan African migrants who risk perilous sea crossings to Europe are often assumed to be illiterate, jobless chancers in desperate bids to flee stagnation and rampant corruption in their home countries. But a survey of some 2,000 irregular African migrants in Europe found them to be more ... MORE > >

Development Banks Needed to Finance Sustainable Development Jomo Kwame Sundaram and Anis Chowdhury Public or state development banking will be vital to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, argues UNCTAD’s Trade and Development Report 2019 (TDR 2019). Ongoing World Bank led efforts seek to leverage private finance via shadow banking by using public money to guarantee handsome returns ... MORE > >

Solar Energy Transforms Villages in Argentina's Puna Highlands Daniel Gutman "On moonless nights it was very difficult to walk around this town," says Celia Vilte, a teacher from San Francisco, a highlands village of just 54 people in the extreme northwest of Argentina whose centre is not a town square but 40 solar panels, which provide one hundred percent of its ... MORE > >

Q&A: How Europe has Moved Away from Being a Sanctuary for Journalists Ed Holt Rising populism, anti-media rhetoric from politicians, cyber-harassment of journalists and physical attacks are among the reasons why press freedom in Europe is on the decline, according to the global media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF). As it released its annual Press Freedom Index ... MORE > >

Agro-tech Offers Answers for African Farmers at Iowa Meet James Reinl Experts vaunted new strains of seeds, drone aircraft and other technological breakthroughs as solutions-in-the-making for farmers in Africa, where hunger, drought and food price hikes are continent-wide problems. At the gathering of nutritionists in the 2019 Borlaug Dialogue International ... MORE > >

Africa’s Investment Drive Gathers Pace Farhana Haque Rahman Headwinds are blowing amid IMF warnings of a “synchronised slowdown” in global economic growth, yet Africa’s investment drive is still gathering pace, supported by intense international competition in development finance. Despite the global slowdown, 19 sub-Saharan countries are among nearly ... MORE > >

Displaced by the Desert: An expanding Sahara leaves Broken Families and Violence in its Wake Issa Sikiti da Silva Abdoulaye Maiga proudly displays an album showing photos of him and his family during happier times when they all lived together in their home in northern Mali. Today, these memories seem distant and painful. “We lived happily as a big family before the war and ate and drank as much as we could ... MORE > >