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Friday, July 03, 2009   23:41 GMT    
Latest News
DEVELOPMENT-KENYA: Fears Over New Land Deal
By Joyce Mulama
NAIROBI, Jul 4 (IPS) - Concern is mounting in Kenya that the government has leased a big slice of agricultural land to the Qatari foreign investors to produce food for export.
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PERU: Petroleum Sullies the Amazon
By Milagros Salazar*
BAGUA, Peru, Jul 3 (IPS/IFEJ) - "Now the fish are going to disappear," said Luis Umpunchi, an Awajún Indian, one of about 20 people gathered around a broken oil pipeline in the Jayais community, in the northern Peruvian province of Amazonas.
MORE >>

AGRICULTURE: Biotechnology: Africa Must Not Be Left Behind
By Wambi Michael
KAMPALA, Jul 3 (IPS) - Africa must embrace agricultural biotechnology or risk being excluded from a major technological revolution that has had increased food production in the Europe, North America and Asia.
MORE >>

EUROPE: Croatia on Uncertain Course for EU Membership
By Cillian Donnelly
BRUSSELS, Jul 3 (IPS) - The Swedish government, which now holds the rotating presidency of the European Union for the second half of this year, says plans to bring Croatia into the EU have not been derailed despite recent political events in the country. Croatia is officially set to join the Union as its 28th member in 2011.
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RIGHTS-AFRICA: AU Heeds Perpetrators Not Victims
By Diletta Varlese
Sirte, LIBYA, Jul 3 (IPS) - The final day of the African Union summit has been dedicated to the issue of the arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court against Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir, charged with seven counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including murder, rape and torture.
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RUSSIA: Hoping for Much, Expecting Little
By Kester Kenn Klomegah
MOSCOW, Jul 3 (IPS) - U.S. President Barack Obama's visit to Russia next week is expected to bring significant but limited improvement in troubled relations between the two giants.
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POLITICS-BOTSWANA: Parties Block Women Candidates for Upcoming Elections
By Ephraim Nsingo
GABORONE, Jul 3 (IPS) - As Botswana prepares for general elections in October, gender activists are protesting against the lack of female parliamentary candidates.
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CUBA-US: Frosty Relations No Bar to Communication
By Patricia Grogg
HAVANA, Jul 3 (IPS) - Cuba and the United States are poised to resume talks on migration issues any time now, although the five Cuban agents imprisoned in the U.S. remain "a formidable obstacle" to normalising bilateral relations, according to Cuban parliament president Ricardo Alarcón.
MORE >>

RIGHTS-INDIA: India's Historic Gay Ruling
By Ranjita Biswas
KOLKATA, Jul 3 (IPS) - A day after the Delhi High Court's landmark judgment to overturn a colonial law that criminalised homosexuality, Indians expressed mixed reactions to the verdict.
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Q&A: "The Elites Are Like a Huge Elephant Sitting on Haiti"
By Michael Deibert interviews Haitian Prime Minister MICHÈLE PIERRE-LOUIS
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Jul 3 (IPS) - Haitian Prime Minister Michèle Pierre-Louis assumed office in September 2008. Born in the southern city of Jérémie in 1947, she left Haiti with her family in 1964 following a pogrom by dictator François Duvalier against his perceived enemies in her town.
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Global Affairs
RUSSIA: Hoping for Much, Expecting Little
By Kester Kenn Klomegah
MOSCOW - U.S. President Barack Obama's visit to Russia next week is expected to bring significant but limited improvement in troubled relations between the two giants.
MORE >>
 		 
HEALTH: ‘Global Response Needed for Global (Flu) Challenge’
By Emilio Godoy
MEXICO CITY - Health ministers and representatives of 43 countries and the World Health Organisation (WHO) began to meet Thursday in the Mexican resort city of Cancun to discuss a common strategy to curb the spread of the H1N1 flu virus.
MORE >>
 		 
DR-CONGO: U.N.-Backed Troops Abusing Civilians, HRW Says
By Marina Litvinsky
WASHINGTON - United Nations-backed Congolese armed forces conducting intensified military operations in eastern and northern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have failed to protect civilians from brutal rebel retaliatory attacks and instead are themselves attacking and raping Congolese civilians, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Thursday.
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TRADE: Who’s Harming Fish Stocks? Trawlers or Artisanal Fishers?
By Isolda Agazzi
GENEVA - Red tunas, sharks, rays and cods may soon disappear from our tables. Negotiations are ongoing at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to reduce the subsidies that contribute to this catastrophe. These talks foresee exceptions for developing countries, but small fishers may have to turn to other sources of livelihood.
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RIGHTS: U.N. Revisits U.S. Policies on Racial Profiling
By Haider Rizvi
UNITED NATIONS - Millions of U.S. citizens continue to face discrimination at the hands of police and other law enforcement agencies just because they are not white, although the country's new leader in the White House is himself of African descent on his father's side.
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MDGs
Q&A: "The Elites Are Like a Huge Elephant Sitting on Haiti"
By Michael Deibert interviews Haitian Prime Minister MICHÈLE PIERRE-LOUIS
PORT-AU-PRINCE - Haitian Prime Minister Michèle Pierre-Louis assumed office in September 2008. Born in the southern city of Jérémie in 1947, she left Haiti with her family in 1964 following a pogrom by dictator François Duvalier against his perceived enemies in her town.
MORE >>
 		 
AFRICA: Civil Society to AU: Investment Must Address Marginalisation
By Diletta Varlese, Terna Gyuse and Joyce Mulama
Sirte, LIBYA, CAPE TOWN and NAIROBI - No gathering hosted by Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi is ever dull, and the Thirteenth Ordinary Session of the African Union, concluding in Sirte, Libya today has not disappointed.
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ENVIRONMENT-URUGUAY: Invasion of the Sand Dunes
By Inés Acosta
CIUDAD DE LA COSTA, Uruguay - "A road used to run through here, the sidewalk was over there, and this was the neighbour’s yard. That was an esplanade where people parked their cars, and that area over there was a plaza," says Jackeline, pointing to enormous sand dunes that have swallowed up everything, even entire trees.
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HEALTH-LAOS: Inadequate Sanitation Denting GDP
By Nergui Manalsuren
UNITED NATIONS - Poor sanitation and hygiene costs the Lao People’s Democratic Republic 193 million dollars per year, an estimated 5.6 percent of gross domestic product, according to figures from the Water and Sanitation Programme (WSP) of the World Bank.
MORE >>
 		 
POLITICS: U.N. Decries Aid Shortfall in Afghanistan
By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS - The United Nations, which has expressed disappointment over the slow disbursement of development aid to crisis-stricken Afghanistan, has hurled one of its biggest political insults at Western donors: threatening to turn to a U.S. philanthropist for financial assistance.
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Environment
PERU: Petroleum Sullies the Amazon
By Milagros Salazar*
BAGUA, Peru - "Now the fish are going to disappear," said Luis Umpunchi, an Awajún Indian, one of about 20 people gathered around a broken oil pipeline in the Jayais community, in the northern Peruvian province of Amazonas.
MORE >>
 		 
AGRICULTURE: Biotechnology: Africa Must Not Be Left Behind
By Wambi Michael
KAMPALA - Africa must embrace agricultural biotechnology or risk being excluded from a major technological revolution that has had increased food production in the Europe, North America and Asia.
MORE >>
 		 
HEALTH: Sri Lanka's Battle With Dengue
By Amantha Perera
COLOMBO - Sri Lankan health authorities have had to combat an upsurge in cases of the lethal Dengue flu in the island nation this year. They have used mass man-power, public awareness campaigns and even threatened incarceration to stem the spread of the killer disease that has touched epidemic levels in the past six months. But it won’t be easy to stop the disease from spreading.
MORE >>
 		 
US-ECUADOR: Chevron Fails in Effort to Lift Trade Benefits
By Jim Lobe*
WASHINGTON - In the latest in a string of setbacks that could cost the U.S. oil giant Chevron billions of dollars in damages, President Barack Obama decided this week to extend trade preferences for Ecuadorean exports for another six months under the 1991 Andean Trade Preferences Act (ATPA).
MORE >>
 		 
CLIMATE CHANGE: Opportunity For Biopirates?
By Ranjit Devraj
NEW DELHI - Genetically modified (GM) crops that can withstand environmental stress may be one answer to climate change but a powerful lobby is building up against the patenting of technologies involved, especially when they are derivatives of traditional farmers’ innovations.
MORE >>
 		 
Human Rights
PERU: Petroleum Sullies the Amazon
By Milagros Salazar*
BAGUA, Peru - "Now the fish are going to disappear," said Luis Umpunchi, an Awajún Indian, one of about 20 people gathered around a broken oil pipeline in the Jayais community, in the northern Peruvian province of Amazonas.
MORE >>
 		 
RIGHTS-AFRICA: AU Heeds Perpetrators Not Victims
By Diletta Varlese
Sirte, LIBYA - The final day of the African Union summit has been dedicated to the issue of the arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court against Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir, charged with seven counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including murder, rape and torture.
MORE >>
 		 
CUBA-US: Frosty Relations No Bar to Communication
By Patricia Grogg
HAVANA - Cuba and the United States are poised to resume talks on migration issues any time now, although the five Cuban agents imprisoned in the U.S. remain "a formidable obstacle" to normalising bilateral relations, according to Cuban parliament president Ricardo Alarcón.
MORE >>
 		 
RIGHTS-INDIA: India's Historic Gay Ruling
By Ranjita Biswas
KOLKATA - A day after the Delhi High Court's landmark judgment to overturn a colonial law that criminalised homosexuality, Indians expressed mixed reactions to the verdict.
MORE >>
 		 
Q&A: "The Elites Are Like a Huge Elephant Sitting on Haiti"
By Michael Deibert interviews Haitian Prime Minister MICHÈLE PIERRE-LOUIS
PORT-AU-PRINCE - Haitian Prime Minister Michèle Pierre-Louis assumed office in September 2008. Born in the southern city of Jérémie in 1947, she left Haiti with her family in 1964 following a pogrom by dictator François Duvalier against his perceived enemies in her town.
MORE >>
 		 
Health
HEALTH: Sri Lanka's Battle With Dengue
By Amantha Perera
COLOMBO - Sri Lankan health authorities have had to combat an upsurge in cases of the lethal Dengue flu in the island nation this year. They have used mass man-power, public awareness campaigns and even threatened incarceration to stem the spread of the killer disease that has touched epidemic levels in the past six months. But it won’t be easy to stop the disease from spreading.
MORE >>
 		 
HEALTH: ‘Global Response Needed for Global (Flu) Challenge’
By Emilio Godoy
MEXICO CITY - Health ministers and representatives of 43 countries and the World Health Organisation (WHO) began to meet Thursday in the Mexican resort city of Cancun to discuss a common strategy to curb the spread of the H1N1 flu virus.
MORE >>
 		 
US-ECUADOR: Chevron Fails in Effort to Lift Trade Benefits
By Jim Lobe*
WASHINGTON - In the latest in a string of setbacks that could cost the U.S. oil giant Chevron billions of dollars in damages, President Barack Obama decided this week to extend trade preferences for Ecuadorean exports for another six months under the 1991 Andean Trade Preferences Act (ATPA).
MORE >>
 		 
PARAGUAY: President and Congress Face Off Over Agrochemicals
By Natalia Ruiz Díaz
ASUNCIÓN - "Silvino was riding his bike on a dirt road near our home when he was poisoned by toxic agrochemicals, sprayed on a nearby field of soybeans. He died soon afterwards. He was 11," said his mother, Petrona Villasboa, a rural activist in southern Paraguay.
MORE >>
 		 
HEALTH-LAOS: Inadequate Sanitation Denting GDP
By Nergui Manalsuren
UNITED NATIONS - Poor sanitation and hygiene costs the Lao People’s Democratic Republic 193 million dollars per year, an estimated 5.6 percent of gross domestic product, according to figures from the Water and Sanitation Programme (WSP) of the World Bank.
MORE >>
 		 
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