News headlines in November 2015, page 4

MIAMI, Florida, Nov 17 (IPS) - We humans are acutely aware of risks. From our earliest times, the risks we faced were from hunger, predatory animals, extreme environmental conditions and, as our numbers grew, from other human tribes.

NEW YORK, Nov 17 (IPS) - Concerned with the consequences of demographic decline and population ageing, especially with respect to economic growth, national defence and pensions and health care for the elderly, a growing number of governments are seeking to raise birth rates. Whereas nearly 40 years ago 13 countries had policies to raise fertility, today the number has increased four-fold to 56, representing more than one-third of the world's population.

HARARE, Zimbabwe, Nov 17 (IPS) - With droughts wreaking havoc in vast areas of Zimbabwe, a majority of people here are fast falling in line with climate-smart agriculture (CSA) as food deficits continue.

MONTEVIDEO, Nov 17 (IPS) - Uruguay is modifying its energy mix with the aim of achieving carbon neutrality by 2030, by means of a strategy that bolsters non-conventional clean energy sources through public-private partnerships and new investment. A majority of this South American country's energy already comes from renewable sources.

GENEVA, Nov 16 (IPS) - South-South cooperation is usually seen as a poor second fiddle to North-South aid in the world of development assistance. Indeed, developing countries' policy makers themselves insist that South-South cooperation can only supplement but not replace North-South cooperation.

ANKARA, Turkey, Nov 16 (IPS) - The world loses 23 hectares to land degradation each and every minute, adding up to the disappearance of 12 million hectares worldwide – an area half the size of the UK.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Nov 15 (IPS) - "We have to purchase water from the municipalities for our daily use. The water column has gone too deep and it is hard to pump out the commodity," said Muhammad Shakir, a resident of Hayatabad, an upscale town in Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP).

NEW DELHI, India, Nov 14 (IPS) - Increasing calls for Africa to reduce methane emissions from livestock continue to be met with controversy, and livestock scientists say methane is a forgotten short-term climate pollutant with significant global warming potential that Africa cannot continue to overlook.

HAVANA, Nov 13 (IPS) - When night falls, young men can be seen sitting on a dismantled bus stop on a remote hill far from the centre of the Cuban capital. Later they climb uphill to have sex with other men in the thick forest.

KAVREPALANCHOK, NEPAL, Nov 13 (IPS) - Bimala Bajagain, a farmer and mother of three, wears a fading red kurta and appears older than her age at 35. She offers us plates of salted guavas at the porch of her quake-damaged house.