SOCIAL ISSUES - TODAY'S TOPIC NEWS
YESTERDAY'S TOPIC NEWS
PAST WEEK'S TOPIC NEWS
|
MOZAMBIQUE: SHARP INCREASE IN THE PRICE OF FOOD SPARKS RIOTS
MAPUTO, Sep. 3, 2010 (IPS/GIN) – Thousands of Mozambicans joined an angry protest this week here in the capital city Maputo over the rise in prices of basic goods and bread, in particular.
(#73552)
436 words
more
|
DEVELOPMENT: FISHERIES CAN PLAY KEY ROLE IN AFRICA
CAPE TOWN, Sep. 1, 2010 (IPS/GIN) - Fisheries contribute at least $10 billion to African economies every year. In countries such as Angola, Egypt and Namibia, fisheries are vital economic drivers.
(#73514)
917 words
more
|
SOUTH AFRICA: ANTI-FOREIGNER HATE SIMMERS BENEATH THE SURFACE
CAPE TOWN, Sep. 1, 2010 (IPS/GIN) - Somali shopkeeper, Abdinasir Shaikh Aden, is looking tense. He paces up and down the central Cape Town street where his small shop sits tightly between two other businesses. While the hate crimes and xenophobic threats and attacks that surged before the FIFA Soccer World Cup in July have largely died down, Somali refugees remain on their guard.
(#73542)
982 words
more
|
EAST AFRICA: PROTECTING LAKE VICTORIA'S TOP PREDATOR
MWANZA, Tanzania, Aug. 30, 2010 (IPS/GIN) - Coordinated conservation measures to arrest the steep decline of stocks of Nile perch in Lake Victoria are showing encouraging results - for fish, if not for fishing communities around the lake.
(#73507)
834 words
more
|
SOUTH AFRICA: ‘TEA BAG’ FILTER PROVIDES SAFE DRINKING WATER
JOHANNESBURG, Aug. 30, 2010 (IPS/GIN) - Though it may look like a tea bag, straining water through this recently developed filter could provide a cheap, easily replenished source of water for those who need it most.
(#73506)
950 words
more
|
CONGO: OUTRAGE GROWS OVER FAILURE TO PROTECT DRC CIVILIANS
UNITED NATIONS, Aug. 28, 2010 (IPS/GIN) - As details emerged this week of the U.N.'s knowledge of rebel activity in the villages where nearly 200 women were systematically gang raped by armed groups in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) late last month, human rights groups are demanding an investigation into the U.N.'s failure to prevent the raid from occurring.
(#73467)
1071 words
more
|
SOUTH AFRICA: LATEST LABOR STRIKE UNLIKE ONES BEFORE
JOHANNESBURG, Aug. 27, 2010 (IPS/GIN) - Strikes over wages are not uncommon in South Africa, but the current one is unusual in its size and scope, according to Lucien van der Walt, a senior lecturer in the Department of Sociology at the University of the Witwatersrand.
(#73437)
1187 words
more
|
AFRICA: OUTRAGE OVER CLAIM THAT ANTI-GM CAMPAIGN "CAUSES HUNGER"
CAPE TOWN, Aug. 27, 2010 (IPS/GIN) - Civil society organisations have reacted with outrage to claims that the international campaign against genetically modified (GM) crops is partly responsible for food shortages and food insecurity in Africa.
(#73432)
935 words
more
|
UGANDA: HIV PREVENTION SET BACK BY MALE INTRANSIGENCE
MBALE, Uganda, Aug. 26, 2010 (IPS/GIN) - Irene Wangolo was advised to undergo an HIV test during her prenatal visit and to return to the clinic with her husband so they could be counselled on preventing HIV transmission to their unborn baby. But her husband refused to accompany her saying it was not his business and Wangolo never returned to the clinic in Bungokho in eastern Uganda. So she missed all the services, including the prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT).
(#73446)
1374 words
more
|
PHILIPPINES: CRIMINAL BAN, STIGMA DRIVE DEADLY ABORTIONS
MANILA, Sep. 2, 2010 (IPS/GIN) - Lisa, a 19-year-old married mother of three, was hemorrhaging when she was rushed to the Gat Andres Bonifacio Memorial Medical Centre hospital, a week after suffering high fever, severe pain and bleeding as a result of a clumsy attempt to induce abortion by drinking brandy and vino de quina, a rice wine believed to induce post-partum bleeding.
(#73535)
1050 words
more
|
JAPAN: HOUSEHUSBANDS SOFTEN THEIR VIEWS ON GENDER EQUALITY
TOKYO, Aug. 31, 2010 (IPS/GIN) - Since their first child was born 16 years ago, Hiroyuki Ozaki has taken care of the household, relinquishing his traditional role as the main breadwinner while his wife held on to her career in the travel industry.
(#73492)
972 words
more
|
INDIA: ACTIVISTS USE LEGAL WEAPONS TO STOP THERMAL POWER PLANTS
HYDERABAD, India, Aug. 27, 2010 (IPS/GIN) - Green activists have various ways of pushing their causes, from enlisting movie stars to launching protests, but India’s campaigners have also been quietly using legal weapons to try to get the projects they oppose, such as thermal plants, stopped or reversed.
(#73436)
990 words
more
|
SOUTH-EAST ASIA: CHINA FLEXES HYDROPOWER MUSCLE
BANGKOK, Aug. 27, 2010 (IPS/GIN) - After all the turbines in the Xiaowan hydropower station sputtered to life this week in China’s south-west Yunnan province, the Asian giant was able to lay claim to having the world’s largest hydropower capacity.
(#73435)
974 words
more
|
LEBANON: RICH FEAST THROUGH MONTH OF FASTING
BEIRUT, Sep. 2, 2010 (IPS/GIN) - Although not a celebration in the traditional sense, Ramadan in Lebanon is a time of joy for many, during which families reconnect and share their wealth with the poor. But in this country of extremes, not everyone has the luxury of celebrating the holy month.
(#73562)
867 words
more
|
MIDEAST: NETANYAHU BACKS EXPULSION OF 400 CHILDREN OF MIGRANTS
TEl AVIV, Aug. 31, 2010 (IPS/GIN) - Thousands of Israelis have protested in a central park here demanding that their government revoke its decision to deport 400 children of migrant workers.
(#73487)
1076 words
more
|
MIDEAST: BUREAUCRACY LIMITS RIGHTS OF PALESTINIAN WOMEN
RAMALLAH, Aug. 28, 2010 (IPS/GIN) - As Hamas cracks down on the rights of Palestinian women in the Gaza Strip, their sisters in the occupied West Bank are slowly gaining ground. But a bureaucracy, that is sometimes supported by foreign aid, is crippling these advances.
(#73471)
853 words
more
|
BOLIVIA: UN CALLS FOR BROAD PACT ON CHILDREN'S NEEDS
LA PAZ, Sep. 2, 2010 (IPS/GIN) - A national pact to focus on the rights of children was proposed by United Nations representative in Bolivia Yoriko Yasukawa on the 20th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
(#73561)
954 words
more
|
BRAZIL: INEQUALITY DECLINES IN RIO AS RICH GET POORER
RIO DE JANEIRO, Sep. 2, 2010 (IPS/GIN) - The huge gap between the poorest and richest neighbourhoods of Brazil's most famous city shrank between 1996 and 2008. But the news is not as good as it sounds, because the decline in inequality was due to lower incomes in the richer zones, rather than to an increase in wealth in the "favelas" or shantytowns.
(#73560)
1029 words
more
|
MEXICO: TAMAULIPAS, MEXICO'S CRIME CAPITAL
MEXICO CITY, Sep. 2, 2010 (IPS/GIN) - Tamaulipas state has become the black hole of organised crime in Mexico. But there are few accounts of the rapid social breakdown that the northeastern border state has experienced since the start of the year, because the local press is silenced.
(#73559)
1086 words
more
|
MEXICO: MASSACRE GALVANIZES MIGRANT RIGHTS ACTIVISTS
MEXICO CITY, Sep. 1, 2010 (IPS/GIN) - Activists in Latin America have been galvanized by atrocities like the recent massacre of 72 migrants near the U.S. border to step up their efforts on behalf of migrant rights.
(#73512)
1251 words
more
|
VENEZUELA: HUNGER STRIKER DIES IN LAND DISPUTE
CARACAS, Aug. 31, 2010 (IPS/GIN) - Franklin Brito, who held several long hunger strikes since 2004 to defend ownership of his farm, became the first Venezuelan to fast to death.
(#73527)
1235 words
more
|
GUATEMALA: NEW CHALLENGES FOR ANTI-CORRUPTION COMMISSION
GUATEMALA CITY, Aug. 27, 2010 (IPS/GIN) - New challenges and a long list of shocking cases involving hidden power structures are faced by the new head of the United Nations-mandated International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG).
(#73482)
1018 words
more
|
LATIN AMERICA: WANTED: NON-PUNITIVE APPROACH TO DRUG POLICY
RIO DE JANEIRO, Aug. 27, 2010 (IPS/GIN) - Experts from 13 Latin American countries called for a shift in counter-drug policies from a punitive to a public health-based approach for users, in order to reduce drug-related violence, on the argument that the current "war on drugs" has been lost in the region.
(#73476)
1217 words
more
|
NICARAGUA: MAJOR BLOW TO ILLITERACY AMONG NATIVE GROUPS
MANAGUA, Aug. 26, 2010 (IPS/GIN) - For 46 years, Nicanor García didn't know that his first name was seven letters long and that the first letter was also the start of the names of his country, Nicaragua, and his father, Norberto. He found out just eight months ago, when he finally learned how to read and write.
(#73444)
1092 words
more
|
HAITI: SCRAPING BY ON MUD COOKIES
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Aug. 27, 2010 (IPS/GIN) - At six in the morning in Cite Soleil, the poorest zone of Haiti's capital city, the sun is already up. It's the start of another workday for Lurene Jeanti, making cookies from mud, butter and salt. She's been mixing the ingredients on the side of the road to sell to her neighbours for the past eight years.
(#73431)
690 words
more
|
HEALTH: U.N. LAGGING ON WATER AND SANITATION DEVELOPMENT GOALS
UNITED NATIONS, Sep. 2, 2010 (IPS/GIN) - The United Nations stands accused of marginalising water and sanitation in its much-touted Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) aimed at improving the lives of billions of people in the developing world.
(#73564)
1207 words
more
|
RIGHTS-INDIA: LAW TO RESTRICT FOREIGN FUNDING ALARMS NGOS
NEW DELHI, Sep. 2, 2010 (IPS/GIN) - Voluntary and charitable organizations in India are aghast at a new law that will restrict foreign contributions, passed last month by both Houses of Parliament.
(#73534)
933 words
more
|
U.N.: 500,000 PREGNANT WOMEN AT RISK IN PAKISTAN FLOODS
UNITED NATIONS, Sep. 1, 2010 (IPS/GIN) - Aid groups and U.N. agencies are warning that pregnant women and babies are in grave danger in flood ravaged Pakistan.
(#73513)
834 words
more
|
RIGHTS-PAKISTAN: VIGILANTES RESORT TO MOB VIOLENCE, LYNCHINGS
KARACHI, Pakistan, Aug. 30, 2010 (IPS/GIN) - A breakdown in Pakistan’s justice system, a sign of a society desensitized to violence, an example of mob brutality.
(#73462)
941 words
more
|
