News headlines in May 2015, page 10

HARARE, May 08 (IPS) - While many countries appear to have met the U.N. Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of halving the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water, rights activists say that African countries which have taken to installing prepaid water meters have rendered a blow to many poor people, making it hard for them to access water.

COLOMBO, May 08 (IPS) - There has never been any doubt that Nepal is sitting on one of the most seismically active areas in South Asia. The fact that, when the big one struck, damages and deaths would be catastrophic has been known for years.

COLOMBO, May 08 (IPS) - Sustainable development is central to a range of key discussions at the United Nations and elsewhere at the moment.

UXBRIDGE, Canada, May 08 (IPS) - In the course of human history many tens of thousands of communities have survived and thrived for hundreds, even thousands, of years. Scores of these largely self-sustaining traditional communities continue to this day in remote jungles, forests, mountains, deserts, and in the icy regions of the North. A few remain completely isolated from modern society.

UNITED NATIONS, May 07 (IPS) - As the month-long review conference on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) continued into its second week, a coalition of some 50 faith-based organisations (FBOs), anti-nuclear peace activists and civil society organisations (CSOs) was assigned an unenviable task: a brief three-minute presentation warning the world of the disastrous humanitarian consequences of a nuclear attack.

SANTIAGO, May 07 (IPS) - Chile expects to have a more efficient and stable electricity market, with a more steady - and above all, less expensive – supply, when the country's two major power grids are interconnected over a distance of more than 3,000 km.

UNITED NATIONS, May 06 (IPS) - Since being roundly chastised last fall by the U.N. Committee Against Torture for excessive use of force by its law enforcement agencies, the United States hasn't exactly managed to repair its international reputation.

CANBERRA, Australia, May 06 (IPS) - The recent dramatic fall in world oil prices, with Brent crude plummeting from a high of 115 dollars per barrel in June last year to around 47 dollars in January 2015, is beginning to benefit Pacific Islanders who are seeing lower prices for fuel and energy.

COLOMBO, May 05 (IPS) - When Rosy Senanayake, Sri Lanka's minister of state for child affairs, addressed the U.N. Commission on Population and Development (CPD) in New York last month, she articulated both the successes and shortcomings of gender equality in a country which prided itself electing the world's first female head of government: Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranaike in July 1960.

NEW YORK, May 05 (IPS) - At a meeting with Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry this week pledged an extra 45 million dollars for the U.N. which is sheltering over a half million refugees fleeing civil unrest, terrorism and violence in Somalia and South Sudan.