Interview with Mark Heywood

JOHANNESBURG, Apr 30 (IPS) - Results from trials in South Africa, Kenya and Uganda in 2006 showed that male circumcision reduced the transmission of HIV from women to men by up to 60 percent. On the basis of these results, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS and the World Health Organisation have recommended that countries encourage men to be circumcised.
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IRIN

JERUSALEM, 30 April 2008 (IRIN) - Increased Israeli restrictions on the checkpoints around East Jerusalem have caused more delays and more lost man hours for UN staff in March 2008 than in all of 2007, the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has reported.
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By Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Apr 29 (IPS) - The spreading food crisis – triggered primarily by rising prices, declining outputs and growing scarcities worldwide – is threatening to impact heavily on the most vulnerable in society: women and children.

The United Nations and international humanitarian organisations fear the crisis may get worse before its gets better.
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From Economist.com

The conflict in Afghanistan may become more like the one in Iraq

Apr 29th 2008 | KABUL

THE Mujahideen Day parade in Kabul, at the weekend, was supposed to show Afghanistan’s new, Western-trained, armed forces coming of age. President Hamid Karzai, other Afghan politicians and a jumble of diplomats packed a podium to review the troops. Then, just as a 21-gun salute began, what sounded like celebratory firecrackers crackled from a shabby hotel some 400m away. As six lightly armed Taliban fighters took pot shots the dignitaries and military men panicked, shedding bits of ceremonial uniform as they scrambled for safety.
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Olivia Ward
Foreign Affairs Reporter - The torono star
Weapons shipment to Zimbabwe, Darfur debacle, focus world attention on China’s ties to continent

April 28, 2008
For almost half a century, China has been quietly doing business with Africa, often slipping under the radar of public attention.
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By Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Apr 28 (IPS) - Nearly four decades after they were first planned, three highways through the jungles and swamps of Brazil’s Amazon region are being rebuilt. Neglected in the past when they became economically obsolete, they are once again a focus of environmental criticism.
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IRIN

COLOMBO, 24 April 2008 (IRIN) - Sri Lanka, once among Asia’s worst affected nations for malaria, is now close to eliminating it.

The sharp drop in the number of reported cases to 196 in 2007 - with no deaths - demonstrates that the national malaria control programme has been effective even in the traditionally disease-prone northern districts, portions of which are controlled by Tamil Tiger separatists.
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Interview with Victoria Sergeyeva from Penal Reform International

MOSCOW, Apr 25 (IPS) - How close is Russia to abolishing the death penalty? Possibly just two or three years away, suggests Penal Reform International’s director for Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, Victoria Sergeyeva. In an interview with IPS correspondent Kester Kenn Klomegah, she explains that leading Russian politicians have already made up their minds on the issue, though their follow MPs still need prodding out of their indecision. Across the country, young, educated city dwellers would welcome the move.
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By ROGER COHEN
Op-Ed Columnist, The New York Times

Fads come fast and furious in our viral age, and the reactions to them can be equally ferocious. That’s what we’re seeing right now with biofuels, which everyone loved until everyone decided they were the worst thing since the Black Death.
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Interview with Jesús León Santos, Winner of Goldman Prize*

MEXICO CITY, Apr 24 (Tierramérica) - Biotech corporations that developed genetically modified seeds are bribing authorities and carrying out costly advertising campaigns “plagued with lies in order to create monsters that attack life,” says Jesús León Santos, an indigenous man who is one of this year’s winners of the Goldman Environmental Prize.
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By David Cronin

BRUSSELS, Apr 23 (IPS) - Sanctions imposed by the European Union on Burma look set to be extended for an extra year because of the lack of progress on human rights in the military-ruled country.
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By LAURA BLUE/LONDON

Wednesday, Apr. 23, 2008
When there’s a food emergency in the world, the World Food Program (WFP) is the agency called in to handle it, feeding everyone from flood victims after the 2004 tsunami to schoolchildren in Nairobi slums.
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Story from BBC NEWS:

Josette Sheeran from the UN World Food Programme has spoken about the shortages.

The head of the UN World Food Programme has said urgent action is required to stimulate food production and help the poor cope with soaring food prices.
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Analysis by Peter Hirschberg

JERUSALEM, Apr 22 (IPS) - In the clearest indication yet that Israel now believes Iran’s nuclear aspirations will be curbed, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said that efforts being undertaken by the international community will ensure that Tehran does not acquire nuclear capability.
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Interview with Russian Historian and Professor Alexei Miller

BUDAPEST, Apr 21 (IPS) - Key pro-Western politicians in Ukraine are promoting the revival of an ethno-cultural nationalism which is built on opposition to Russia and has driven a wedge between Ukrainians – western Ukrainians tend to see the eastern neighbour as the eternal enemy, while many in the east see Russia as a part of themselves.
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Foundation for a Culture of Peace

The meeting was staged by the Foundation for a Culture of Peace with the support of the Government of Catalonia’s Agency for Development Cooperation and in cooperation with Montserrat Abbey, the Foundation for Dialogue among Civilizations, ISESCO and the Mountain of Montserrat Trust.
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Analysis by Trita Parsi*

WASHINGTON, Apr 18 (IPS) - By negotiating a Shiite truce, Tehran embarrassed Washington last week and arguably proved itself to be a more potent stabiliser of southern Iraq.

Iran’s role in Iraq came as a sharp reminder that the George W. Bush administration’s accusations of Iranian mischief notwithstanding, Iranian influence in Iraq is both undeniable and multifaceted. As Washington starts to come to terms with this reality, the Middle East inches closer to its moment of truth: Is the United States ready to share the region with Iran?
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John Roach

For National Geographic News

April 17, 2008

Giant lakes of meltwater pooled on top of Greenland’s ice sheets can suddenly drain to the bedrock, allowing the sheet to more easily slip forward, according to new research.

One lake that covered 2.2 square miles (5.6 square kilometers) and held 11.6 billion gallons (43.9 billion liters) of fresh water drained completely in about 90 minutes, scientists observed recently.
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By Julio Godoy

BERLIN, Apr 17 (IPS) - The German government decision two weeks back against increased use of biofuels was based on technical reasons – more than three millions vehicles cannot burn biofuels without risking engine breakdown.

But this reason might be the least important of all. Environmental experts have been warning that biofuels, far from reducing greenhouse gas emissions, actually have a negative environmental footprint.
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Pablo Dávalos

There is a relation between the notion of “the right to preemptive self-defense” that allowed, legitimated, and justified the US invasion in Afghanistan and Iraq, that was announced by the hawks of the Bush administration, and Colombian President Álvaro Uribe’s doctrine of Democratic Security. In both cases, war is deterritorialized in the search for a ubiquitous and almost abstract enemy: the terrorist.
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IRIN- humanitarian news and analysis

KABUL, 15 April 2008 (IRIN) - Attacks on non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and aid workers by anti-government forces, chiefly Taliban insurgents, have risen sharply in the first quarter of 2008, according to a report by the Afghanistan NGO Safety Office (ANSO).
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Interview with Amnesty International Secretary-General Irene Khan

BRUSSELS, Apr 16 (IPS) - When Stojan Miodrac’s corpse was identified by his wife in 1991, his ears had been cut off and his eyes gouged out. He met his horrific end after being asked to produce his identity card when he went to a social security office in Croatia. His only transgression was that he bore an ethnic Serb name.
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Analysis by Bill Berkowitz*

OAKLAND, California, Apr 15 (IPS) - During a recent appearance at the National Religious Broadcasters conference, Dr. James Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family, expressed deep concern about the future of the conservative Christian movement he helped build and define.
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IRIN-humanitarian news and analysis

SANAA, 13 April 2008 (IRIN) - The Yemeni government has announced a new and comprehensive initiative to combat child smuggling and trafficking. The first of its kind in the country, officials say they expect the plan to tackle the problem through detailed research and targeted programmes.
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Story from BBC NEWS

The World Bank has announced emergency measures to tackle rising food prices around the world.

World Bank head Robert Zoellick warned that 100 million people in poor countries could be pushed deeper into poverty by spiralling prices.
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IRIN-humanitarian news and analysis

BANGKOK, 11 April 2008 (IRIN) - The deaths on 9 April of 54 illegal migrant workers from Myanmar, who suffocated in the back of a container truck while being smuggled to the Thai resort island of Phuket, highlight the vulnerability of foreign migrant labourers in Thailand, said UN International Labour Organization (ILO) officials.
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Interview with Human Rights Watch chief, Kenneth Roth

TOKYO , Apr (IPS) - Kenneth Roth has been executive director of Human Rights Watch (HRW) since 1993. In Tokyo to set up a new office for the rights lobby Roth discussed with IPS correspondent Catherine Makino such issues as China, the Olympics and hotspots like Darfur, Burma, Sudan and Bangladesh.
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IRIN- humanitarian news and analysis

MBABANE, 9 April 2008 (IRIN) - One in three Swazi women has suffered some form of sexual abuse as a child; one in four experienced physical violence, a new United Nations survey revealed this week.
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Interview with Leonard Vincent

CAPE TOWN, Apr 10 (IPS) - Journalism in Ethiopia has become an increasingly hazardous trade over recent years. A clampdown on the media in the wake of disputed elections in 2005 continues to resonate in the country, while certain members of the press have even found themselves facing capital punishment.
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Daphne Wysham, Shakuntala Makhijani

The World Bank’s long-running identity crisis is proving hard to shake. When efforts to rebrand itself as a “knowledge bank” didn’t work, it devised a new identity as a “Green Bank.” Really? Yes, it’s true.

Sure, the Bank continues to finance fossil fuel projects globally, but never mind. The World Bank has seized upon the immense challenges climate change poses to humanity and is now front and center in the complicated, international world of carbon finance. It can turn the dirtiest carbon credits into gold.
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Interview with Anand Sharma, India’s minister of state for external affairs

NEW DELHI, Apr 9 (IPS) - As a senior politician associated with the movement against apartheid, it was natural for India’s minister of state for external affairs Anand Sharma to play a key role in the Apr. 7-9 India-Africa Forum Summit.

Sharma, who, in 1994, was appointed a Commonwealth observer during the transition process and elections in South Africa, explained to IPS correspondent Paranjoy Guha Thakurta why India’s present engagement is the continuation of a long established policy of cooperation with African countries.
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By Joseph Coleman

The Associated Press

UN talks in Thailand weigh cost of inaction

BANGKOK: With global markets in turmoil and recession threatening the United States, some negotiators at a c1imate change conference are asking:
can the world afford to fight global c1imate change? .
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Analysis by Vesna Peric Zimonjic

BELGRADE, Apr 8 (IPS) - Security issues in the Balkans came under the spotlight once again at the NATO summit in Bucharest, where some nations from the region were invited to join the alliance, some remained in the waiting room, and some like Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro and Serbia, outside.
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By Ingrid Melander

BRUSSELS, April 4 (Reuters) - Development aid from the world’s biggest donors fell again last year largely due to the end of big debt relief packages, the OECD said on Friday, urging rich countries to live up to their commitments to give more.

The 22 member countries of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development gave $103.7 billion in development aid – typically funding for education or projects to spur economic growth – in 2007.
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By Apostolis Fotiadis

SARAJEVO, Apr 7 (IPS) - Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence has provoked new divisions in Bosnia and Herzegovina over the past few weeks.

Demonstrations organised by ethnic Serbs since the proclamation of Kosovo independence Feb. 17 have continued since, and occasionally resulted in small riots.
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By Fiona Harvey, Environment Correspondent

Published: April 3 2008 18:20 | Last updated: April 3 2008 18:20

Slum-dwellers in Dar es Salaam pay the equivalent of £4 ($8, €5) for 1,000 litres of water, bought over time and by the canister. In the same Tanzanian city, wealthier households connected to the municipal supply receive that amount for just 17p. In the UK, the same volume of tap water costs 81p and in the US it is as low as 34p.
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By Mario Osava*

RIO DE JANEIRO, Apr 4 (Tierramérica) - BR-319, a road blazed 35 years ago through the heart of the Amazon jungle and now impassable due to neglect, has sparked a new battle between environmentalists and the Brazilian authorities, who have decided to rebuild it.
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From Economist.com

Apr 3rd 2008 | NEW YORK

Forty years after the murder of Martin Luther King, is America any closer to realising his dreams?

MARTIN LUTHER KING dreamed of a day when his children would be judged not by skin colour but by character. Black America has moved far since his murder on April 4th 1968, at least on the political front. Four decades ago racists blew up churches and beat civil-rights marchers. Today, at least at the top, black America has found its voice: a black woman, Condoleezza Rice, is secretary of state, and a black man, Barack Obama, may capture the presidency in November.
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Interview with Daisaku Ikeda, President of Soka Gakkai International

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 28 (IPS) - As the United Nations commemorates the 60th anniversary of its landmark Universal Declaration of Human Rights this year, the Tokyo-based Soka Gakkai International (SGI) has called for an international conference on human rights education.

A non-governmental organisation (NGO) with over 12 million members in some 190 countries, SGI says the proposed conference should be centred on civil society groups.
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IRIN - humanitarian news and analysis

BOSSANGOA, 1 April 2008 (IRIN) - The Monam group of rape survivors in the northern town of Bossangoa in the Central African Republic (CAR) does what it can to keep going, but morale is low and money tight.

“We’ve been left to fend for ourselves. We get little help from outside. Many of our members have died,” the group’s chairwoman, Pelagie Ndokoyanga, told IRIN/PlusNews.
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Analysis by Adam Morrow and Khaled Moussa al-Omrani

CAIRO, Apr 2 (IPS) - A recent article in Vanity Fair magazine “exposing” a U.S.-planned coup attempt against Palestinian resistance movement Hamas last year has ignited a storm of debate about Washington’s Middle East policies. Yet for more than nine months, details of the plot were reported in the independent Arabic press – and elsewhere – leading some observers to ask: where was the mainstream media?
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By Vesna Peric Zimonjic

BELGRADE, Apr 1 (IPS) - Serbia’s War Crimes Prosecution Office has formally opened an investigation into the case of hundreds of Serbs who disappeared in Kosovo in 1998-99. The investigations were ordered after excerpts from a book by former chief international war crimes tribunal prosecutor Carla Del Ponte were published in local media.
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Adam Isacson

In the past week the Bush administration has unearthed a “national security” justification for passage of the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement that can’t be allowed to stand.

“As your national security adviser in that region, I will tell you that it is very important that the free trade agreement be passed from a national security perspective,” the commander of U.S. Southern Command, Adm. James Stavridis, told the House Armed Services Committee last week. “And, I hear that not just from senior people in Colombia, but from my interlocutors in the region. They’re watching very closely to see what happens to a nation that stands with the United States for a decade or more.” The admiral echoed an argument that President Bush used in speeches on March 12 and 18.
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