By Mannava Sivakumar*

IDN-InDepth NewsViewpoint

GENEVA (IDN) – The impacts of climate change are now nowhere more visible than on the lives of billions of poor farmers around the world. In the last 50 years the world population has more than doubled – from 3 billion in 1959 to 6.7 billion in 2009.
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By Antonaeta Becker

LONDON, Jun 30, 2010 (IPS) - When China designed the 2010 Universal Expo in Shanghai as a showcase for its new public diplomacy, it probably did not envision the exhibition will play a much bigger role as a magnet for recession-hit European businesses.

Successions of trade missions from Europe have travelled to Shanghai in the past two months, wooing Chinese investors in attempt to boost their weakened economies.
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By Stephen de Tarczynski

MELBOURNE, June 29, 2010 (IPS) - Australia’s newly appointed prime minister, Julia Gillard, has hardly warmed her seat, yet she has already been urged to take action on climate change.
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IRIN- humanitarian news and analysis

JOHANNESBURG, 28 June 2010 (IRIN) - “Out of sight, out of mind” explains why Southern Africa has been grappling with one of the biggest outbreaks of measles, a highly contagious viral disease, since 2009.
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By Gunter Pauli (*)

TOKYO, Jun (IPS) The world is in need of a new economic model. Who doubts this while the debate on climate change decelerates and the temperature of the earth rises, along with unemployment and poverty levels. We have to search for solutions beyond the obvious and make quantum leaps.
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by Fareed Zakaria - Newsweek

As Barack Obama goes through one of his most difficult periods as president, you might wonder what it would have been like if the other guy had won. We will never know, of course, but in one area, John McCain provides us with some clues. He would have tried to overthrow the government of Iran. In a speech on June 10, later published as a cover essay in The New Republic, McCain urged that we “unleash America’s full moral power” to topple the Tehran regime. The speech highlights one of the crucial failings of McCain’s world view, one in which rhetoric replaces analysis, and fantasy substitutes for foreign policy.
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By Jerrold Kessel and Pierre Klochendler

SHEIKH SA’AD, Occupied Eastern Jerusalem, Jun 25, 2010 (IPS) - A traffic light, yet no traffic at all. In fact, a traffic light…for pedestrians only. And even they move little. There are restrictions on walking out of this village (pop. 3,000).
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By IDN Environment Desk

IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

BERLIN (IDN) – Clean, fresh water supply, which is fundamental to life and health – regardless of nationality, age, gender, profession or status – is at “extreme risk” in four African countries: Somalia, Mauritania, Sudan and Niger.
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By Supachai Panitchpakdi (*)

GENEVA, Jun (IPS) This time last year, the global economy had reached the nadir of the financial and economic crisis. Since then, a
succession of optimistic commentators, media reporters, economists and others has been pointing to the strength of the recovery: the
resurgence in stock markets, the restoration of bank balances, and the reversals in growth rates. At the same time, data have emerged
describing the full impact and cost of the crisis, particularly for developing countries, including an increase in unemployment, an additional 53 million people falling below the poverty line and over 100 million more going hungry.
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By John Ribeiro, IDG News

Post offices in many emerging countries are being transformed from their traditional role of delivering letters, to centers for the delivery of Internet and services in far-flung locations, according to studies by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and Universal Postal Union (UPU).
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By Jaya Ramachandran

IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

ROME (IDN) - There is a genuine alternative to land acquisitions in developing countries that would benefit both big investors and small farmers, claims new research. It shows how agricultural investments in developing nations can be structured as alternatives to large-scale land grabbing.
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By Beatrice Paez

UNITED NATIONS, Jun 23, 2010 (IPS) - Despite the ongoing financial crisis, global poverty rates are expected to fall by half in the next five years compared to 1990, according to the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) Report 2010 launched on Wednesday by
Secretary-General Ban Ki- Moon.
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By Carlos Brito (*)

LEUVEN , Jun (IPS) Companies are becoming more aware of challenges such as climate change, water scarcity and dependency on finite resources. There is no disputing that our natural resources must be used wisely, with an emphasis on lightening our impact on the planet.

Environmental responsibility is important for companies not only because it is the right way to operate but because it is a fundamental pillar of their long-term business strategy.
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by Eve Fairbanks-Newsweek *

North Korea deserves it, and it worked against South Africa.

June 21, 2010 . All I’d wanted was a ticket to today’s unbelievable 7-0 win by Portugal over North Korea in Cape Town. Instead, I got stuck in Johannesburg, which turned out to be a stroke of good luck. There, I watched the game on TV in a gloriously faded old Mozambican restaurant called the Troyeville Hotel. Down in Cape Town, it poured rain on spectators and players through the entire match. After the kickoff, I asked my companion in the Troyeville, an American soccer writer, what difference the weather would make to the play. “Some teams actually like playing in the rain, because the ball moves faster over the pitch,” he told me. “It also depends on what conditions they’re used to.” Then we both had the same thought: does it rain in North Korea?
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By Constanza Vieira

BOGOTA, Jun 21, 2010 (IPS) - Former Colombian Defence Minister Juan Manuel Santos was elected president with the votes of just 30 percent of all voters on the electoral rolls, while turnout stood at a mere 45 percent in this country caught up in a civil war since 1964.

But of the votes cast in Sunday’s runoff election, Santos, seen as right-wing President Álvaro Uribe’s heir, took 69 percent.
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By Luc Gnacadja*

IDN-InDepth NewsViewpoint

BONN (IDN) - Six to ten inches (18-25 cm) of topsoil are all that stand between us and extinction. There’s far more to this than food. The things that live in and grow from this irreplaceable and finite resource also keep us clothed, the air and water clean, the land green and pleasant and the human soul refreshed. Only now are we starting to comprehend how the tiny life forms in soil sustain productivity and the greater environmental balance.
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By Ray Smith

BERN, Jun 18, 2010 (IPS) - Only two years after its last revision, the Swiss Asylum Act is about to be ‘reformed’ again. The changes include a gag order on political activism for asylum-seekers and a modification of the concept of a refugee.

Ever since Switzerland adopted the Asylum Act in 1981, it has constantly been tightened, largely at the expense of the refugees, as in most European countries.
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by Michael Hirsh - Newsweek *

Nine years after 9/11, we still don’t know how to deal with radical Islam.

June 17, 2010.The Obama administration is deeply concerned with stopping the next Faisal Shahzad—the man who, but for another lesson or two on bomb making, might have blown up Times Square on May 1. But in an administration also eager to ingratiate itself with the Muslim world, how far are Obama and his advisers willing to go to confront the radical Islamism that drives men like Shahzad?
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By Richard Johnson

IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

PARIS (IDN) - The biggest economic story of our times is unfolding itself. In the new economic world we live in, countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America are providing the dynamism for future growth.

In fact, economic growth in the developing world has outpaced that in advanced economies for more than a decade. Developing countries are set to contribute nearly 60 percent of world GDP (gross domestic product) by 2030.
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By Marwaan Macan-Markar

BANGKOK, June 17, 2010 (IPS) - In the wake of a new U.S. government report on human trafficking, human rights and migrant rights activists are calling on a South-east Asian regional bloc to review its polices toward this scourge to protect the group’s most vulnerable citizens – its women and children.
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By Matthew O. Berger and Emilio Godoy*

WASHINGTON/MEXICO CITY, Jun 16, 2010 (IPS) - On a spring day in the Gulf of Mexico, a pipe issuing from the sea floor ruptured, sending an explosion rippling up to the drilling platform above and spewing oil into the surrounding waters. Experts scrambled to seal off the ever-increasing mass of oil by capping the pipe, clogging it or covering it. Nothing worked.
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Greg Kaufmann | The Nation

June 15, 2010. In the ornate Benjamin Franklin State Dining Room [1] at the US State Department—before a standing-room-only crowd that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton described as “one of the biggest we’ve had here”—Clinton recognized Laura Germino, the antislavery campaign coordinator for the Coalition of Immokalee Workers [2] (CIW), as an “anti-Trafficking Hero.” In the ten years that the award has been given to individuals who have shown an extraordinary commitment and leadership in the fight against slavery, Germino is the first US-based recipient.
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By Ronald Joshua

IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

KAMPALA (IDN) - All that glitters is not gold. This applies to the Rome Statute which set up the International Criminal Court (ICC) in 1998, against the staunch opposition of the United States, giving it jurisdiction over four categories of crimes: the crime of aggression, genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
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By Ilter Turan (*)

ISTANBUL, Jun (IPS) A major difference has emerged recently between the United States and Turkey regarding alleged Iranian aspirations to develop nuclear capability. By continuing to enrich uranium that could eventually be used for building nuclear weapons, Iran had continually defied the United Nations and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) which is responsible for monitoring nuclear activities of member states to insure that they are complying with provisions of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
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By Justin Akers Chacón

IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

OAKLAND (IDN) - “Can you hear us now, Mexico? Can you hear us? This land is not your land, this land is our land,” proclaimed Atlanta talk radio host Larry Wachs, whipping the crowd of 5,000 into a frenzy.

The intent of the statement was to define the enemy and expose its insidious plot: nothing less than an international conspiracy of Mexico’s children to invade and occupy Arizona soil, with the criminal intentions of finding work, raising families and achieving some semblance of social equality.
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By Gonzalo Ortiz*

QUITO, Jun 14, 2010 (Tierramérica) - The spectacular glacier Number 15 of Altisana, one of the Ecuadorean capitals’ sources of potable water, lost at least 36 percent of its original mass in the last 50 years.

The Antisana is a snow-capped peak of the eastern branch of the Andes range whose three humps can be seen from Quito on clear days. It is located at the same latitude as the capital, 50 kilometres to the east.
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By Jim Lobe*

WASHINGTON, Jun 2010 (IPS) - While U.S. officials insist they are making progress in reversing the momentum built up by the Taliban insurgency over the last several years, the latest news from Afghanistan suggests the opposite may be closer to the truth.
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by Ravi Somaiya - Newsweek

After a brief peace, violent clashes in Sudan killed 600 in May. But our attention was apparently elsewhere.

June 10, 2010 . Last month, according to a United Nations report, about 600 people were killed violently in Darfur—the largest number since the U.N. was deployed in 2008. So why aren’t we paying attention any more?
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Analysis by Jerrold Kessel and Pierre Klochendler

JERUSALEM, Jun 10, 2010 (IPS) - Israel has given guarded approval to the new round of sanctions imposed by the UN Security Council in the international community’s bid to haul back Iran’s nuclear programme.

But a senior Israeli official told IPS, “We very much doubt that these sanctions will be enough.”
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By Julio Godoy

IDN-InDepth NewsViewpoint

BERLIN (IDN) - If the world needed a symbol of the dimensions of the environmental catastrophe the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico embodies, then it was this: Dozens of pelicans, the archetypical bird of the area, oil-soaked, condemned to dying before our eyes. Before us, helpless spectators, horrified by British Petroleum’s deeds.
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By Monique Barbut (*)

PUNTA DEL ESTE, May (IPS) Another day, another commute from work, another trip to the market, another evening at home. We go about our daily business, largely oblivious to the ravages being inflicted upon our planet. Sure, we know about climate change and we see the oil spills on the news. But few of us realize that we may have fished out our oceans by 2050. Or that for the first time since dinosaurs walked the Earth, species of plants and animals are becoming extinct faster than new ones are evolving.
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By IDN Environment Desk

IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

(IDN) - But for the World Oceans Day, that “continuous body of water” covering about 71 percent of the Earth’s surface will be hardly on anyone’s radar screen. In fact, the United Nations too started focussing worldwide attention on the oceans only in 2009 by marking June 8 as the World Oceans Day.
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By Sujoy Dhar

BHOPAL, India, June 2010 (IPS) - Twenty-five years after an industrial gas leak from the factory of a U.S. multinational firm in this ancient Indian city killed thousands and impaired nearly half a million, victims are still crying for justice.
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By Karen Orenstein*

IDN-InDepth NewsViewpoint

(IDN) The U.S., other developed countries, and the World Bank aim for control of climate finance at UN negotiations, but many developing countries and civil society are pushing back.
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A Global Civil Society Campaign to De-Legitimise Israel?

By Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Jun 4, 2010 (IPS) - If, as expected, the U.N. Security Council remains politically impotent and refuses to penalise Israel for the killings of nine pro-Palestinian civilians on a ship carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza, what is the next course of action?
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By Pier Carlo Padoan*

IDN-InDepth NewsViewpoint

PARIS (IDN) - One of the side-effects of the global crisis has been a temporary narrowing of current account imbalances among the world’s major countries and economic areas. This is good news, but will it last? Policy actions may be needed.
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By Brenda Sorensen

IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

COPENHAGEN (IDN) – High expectations are being placed on a new technology that would capture and store carbon and help mitigate climate change. But a new report says that the technology known as ‘Carbon Capture and Storage’ (CCS) cannot work wonders and bring about required reductions in CO2 emissions that are known to contribute to global warming.
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By Gareth Porter*

WASHINGTON, Jun 3, 2010 (IPS) - Some CIA officers involved in the agency’s drone strikes programme in Pakistan and elsewhere are privately expressing their opposition to the programme within the agency, because it is helping al Qaeda and its allies recruit, according to a retired military officer in contact with them.
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By Leonardo Padura (*)

HAVANA, MAY (IPS) History is addicted to the creation of cliches, drawn generally from a more or less visible reality held up as typifying a society, an age, or a country. And so with Cuba, known in certain periods known as the “Key of the Gulf” (of Mexico) because of its geographical location, or the “Pearl of the Empire” (the Spanish empire of the Americas), has been identified for much of the last century with sugar above all else.
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Neve Gordon | The Nation

June 1, 2010. “Why didn’t they greet us with muffins and orange juice?” was my friend’s facetious question after listening all morning to the Israeli media’s coverage of the assault on the relief flotilla heading for Gaza, the navy assault that left nine citizens dead and many more wounded. Like a group of pirates in the Mediterranean, the Israeli navy attacked humanitarian aid ships in international waters, and yet Israeli officials and commentators were totally surprised when the passengers did not receive them with open arms. Going through the talkbacks on news sites, it seems that most Jews in Israel were also taken aback.
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Roane Carey | The Nation

June 1, 2010. An ancient proverb holds that the gods first drive mad those whom they wish to destroy. What madness could have driven the Israeli government to order its navy to attack, in international waters, a flotilla of ships full of human rights activists, MPs from governments around the world, a Nobel Prize winner and two former US diplomats?
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By Roberto Savio (*)

ROME, May (IPS) It was sixty years ago this May that French foreign minister Robert Schumann made his appeal for a United Europe that would prevent the wars and traumas that had haunted European history. It would be hard to imagine a less auspicious time for celebration.
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