News headlines in 2016, page 39

Oaxaca, MEXICO / UNITED NATIONS, Aug 08 (IPS) - Indigenous peoples around the world continue to struggle for self-determination over their education, as highlighted by recent protests against proposed education reforms in Oaxaca, Mexico, which have left several indigenous teachers dead.

MIGORI COUNTY, Kenya, Aug 08 (IPS) - In some parts of the world, the proverbial "glass ceiling" is shattering. As Theresa May and, most likely, Hillary Clinton join Angela Merkel at the leadership of three major world powers, women's leadership in politics is on the ascent.

JOHANNESBURG, Aug 06 (IPS) - After years of wrangling and debates among African leaders, the movement to end female genital mutilation (FGM) is gaining real momentum, with a new action plan signed this week by Pan African Parliament (PAP) representatives and the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA) to end FGM as well as underage marriage.

SRINAGAR, Aug 05 (IPS) - Hospitals in Kashmir's summer capital are packed to capacity these days, their wards overflowing with pellet gun victims injured during violent clashes with government forces.

SANTIAGO, Aug 04 (IPS) - Education, the most powerful instrument in the struggle against exclusion and discrimination, is still elusive for indigenous people in Latin America who remain the most disadvantaged segment of the population despite their wide presence in the region.

AMBOASARY, Madagascar, Aug 04 (IPS) - Mirantsoa Faniry Rakotomalala is different from most farmers in the Greater South of Madagascar, who are devastated after losing an estimated 80 percent of their crops during the recent May/June harvesting season to the ongoing drought here, said to be the most severe in 35 years.

KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 04 (IPS) - According to the World Bank, the MDG target of halving the share of the poor was achieved by 2008, well in advance of 2015, the target year. However, increased unemployment and lower incomes in recent times remind us that poverty is not an unchanging attribute of a shrinking group, but rather, a condition that billions of vulnerable persons risk experiencing.

Oxford, UNITED KINGDOM, Aug 03 (IPS) - The process for arguably the top political job on the planet is well underway.  And the time is right for a woman and a feminist to take the helm.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Aug 03 (IPS) - An era of mega-events and mega-projects is coming to a close in Brazil with the Olympic Games to be hosted Aug. 5-21 by Rio de Janeiro. But the country's taste for massive construction undertakings helped fuel the economic and political crisis that has it in its grip.

ROME, Aug 03 (IPS) - The official reasons for the US-led, UK-backed invasion of Iraq in 2003 were to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, end Saddam Hussein's support of terrorism, and free the Iraqi people.

However, immediately after the United States deposed and killed Iraq's dictator and established a new authority to govern the country, a chaotic post-invasion environment surfaced, militias formed, inter-ethnic violence between Sunnis and Shias increased, and the Abu Ghraib scandal came to light.