News headlines in November 2015, page 3

Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, Nov 20 (IPS) - Aflatoxin contamination is a growing threat to trade, food and health security in sub-Saharan Africa, where smallholder farmers are challenged by food production and now climate change, researchers said.

PUNTA LEONA, Costa Rica, Nov 20 (IPS) - Private voluntary nature reserves in Latin America should be seen as allies in policies on the environment, climate change mitigation and the preservation of biological diversity in rainforests, say experts.

Lusaka, Zambia, Nov 20 (IPS) - When health officer Kennedy Mulenga was faced with a male patient developing breasts at the remote Ngwerere Clinic 30km north of the Zambian capital, Lusaka, he logged onto Virtual Doctors to get help solving the medical mystery.

Nov 20 (IPS) - With eight specific commitments aimed at pushing through laws and policies on food security and sovereignty, family farming and school feeding programmes, legislators from 17 countries closed the Sixth Forum of the Parliamentary Front Against Hunger in Latin America and the Caribbean.

NEW DELHI, INDIA, Nov 19 (IPS) - Few countries in the world are as vulnerable to the effects of climate change as India is with its vast population (of over 1.2 billion) that is dependent on the growth of its agrarian economy, its expansive coastal areas and the Himalayan region and islands.

ROME, Nov 19 (IPS) - At the end of 2014, an estimated 795 million people – one in nine people worldwide – were estimated to be chronically hungry. All but 15 million of the world's hungry live in developing countries, i.e., 780 million are in developing countries, where the share of the hungry has declined by less than half – from 23.4 per cent in 1991 to 12.9 per cent.

KINGSTON, Jamaica, Nov 18 (IPS) - This past summer Jamaicans sweltered through their third consecutive year of reduced rainfall resulting in wild fires, a crop-killing drought and daily water cuts.

Thiruvananthapuram, India, Nov 18 (IPS) - Until September this year, Lissie Sunny was not a name known to the Indian public. All of this changed when this lean and dark woman, working for over a quarter century plucking tea leaves in the misty mountain slopes of southern India finally had enough and took on one of the most powerful tea companies in the world.

DOKOLO, UGANDA, Nov 17 (IPS) - Households in Northern Uganda are recovering from a prolonged dry spell which has devastated harvests and led to food shortages. Long-awaited rains are expected to replenish pastures, and communities are being encouraged to plant short-term crops. But those that can, fear losing their produce again, when the rains stop.

LIMA, Nov 17 (IPS) - Lawmakers in the Parliamentary Front Against Hunger in Latin America and the Caribbean decided at a regional meeting to work as a bloc for the passage of laws on food security – an area in which countries in the region have show uneven progress.