News headlines in November 2016, page 3

BONN / ROME, Nov 23 (IPS) - Marking this year's World Day to Combat Desertification last June, the United Nations announced the launch of a China-United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) Belt and Road Joint Action initiative to curb Desertification along the Silk Road.

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 23 (IPS) - Young women are beginning to find their voices around issues such as sexism and violence, including through hip-hop, an art-form which has a long tradition of fighting oppression.

KULGAM, Kashmir, India, Nov 23 (IPS) - In the fading light of a November afternoon, 12-year-old Mariya Sareer bends over a textbook, trying to read as much as she can before it gets dark. It's been nearly five months since the seventh grader from Shurat, a village 70 kms south of Srinagar city, last went to school, thanks to a raging political conflict.

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 22 (IPS) - Following a contentious and close vote, a UN General Assembly (UNGA) committee reaffirmed the right of a newly appointed UN expert addressing violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity to continue his work.

BERLIN, Nov 22 (IPS) - "One challenge we are facing is that we are invisible as a region, and the feminist movement is invisible, both inside and outside the region." Natalia Karbowska, Board Chair of Ukrainian Women's Fund said at a session on Eastern and South-East Europe, Caucasus, and Central Asia: Getting (back) on global feminist map during the recent AWID Forum held in Bahia, Brazil from the 8^th-11^th September, 2016.

NAIROBI, Kenya, Nov 22 (IPS) - Consider this paradox. Every year 1 million young people join the job market in Kenya, yet Kenya has the largest number of jobless youth in East Africa.

As the government puts in place measures for addressing the issue of high youth unemployment and poverty, The private sector needs to join forces to sustainably grow its business and markets. Businesses and the societies that they operate in are symbiotic and it is now an established maxim that business cannot succeed in societies that fail.

ROME, Nov 22 (IPS) - In December 1946, "faced with the reality of millions of children suffering daily deprivation in Europe after World War II," the General Assembly of the United Nations created the UN International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF), to mount urgent relief programmes.

SANTIAGO, Nov 22 (IPS) - An open-pit coal mine in the southern island of Riesco, a paradise of biological diversity in Chile's southern Patagonia wilderness region, is a reflection of the weakness of the country's environmental laws, which are criticised by local residents, activists, scientists and lawmakers.

MARRAKECH, Nov 21 (IPS) - With climate change posing growing threats to smallholder farmers, experts working around the issues of agriculture and food security say it is more critical than ever to implement locally appropriate solutions to help them adapt to changing rainfall patterns.

NAIROBI, Kenya, Nov 21 (IPS) - The dismissal of Lt-Gen Johnson Mogoa Kimani Ondieki as commander of the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) comes off as a knee-jerk reaction that fails to address structural limitations of the UN peacekeeping operations.

Even more worrying for Kenya is that the action practically eviscerates the country's unrivaled contribution to peace and stability in Sudan.