News headlines in 2016, page 71

UN, New York, Apr 27 (IPS) - We have arrived at the point of no return. At this very moment the world is witnessing the highest level of humanitarian needs since World War Two. We are experiencing a human catastrophe on a titanic scale: 125 million in dire need of assistance, over 60 million people forcibly displaced, and 218 million people affected by disasters each year for the past two decades.

NAIROBI, Kenya, Apr 27 (IPS) - In a recently released music video by a Kenyan artist, a young gay and lesbian couple holds hands on separate dates at a park in Nairobi. The progress of their love from kisses to more graphic bedroom scenes are threaded with past images of anti-gay headlines and protests mainly from Uganda and Kenya.

BLANTYRE, Malawi, Apr 27 (IPS) - Malawi considers itself ‘a god fearing nation' so much that any act ‘out of the ordinary' is said to be either satanic, a sin or demonic. Even a drink or a walk could be satanic in the country if you are not careful!

BOGOTA, Apr 27 (IPS) - Collusion, according to the dictionary, means "secret or illegal cooperation or conspiracy, especially in order to cheat or deceive others." That is what the world's political and economic elites engage in, according to Danny Sriskandarajah, secretary general of the international civil society alliance CIVICUS.

UNITED NATIONS, Apr 26 (IPS) - The 134 members of the Group of 77 and China (G-77) made their mark on the Paris Climate Change Agreement and should now adopt a program of action to implement it, Ambassador Ahmed Djoghlaf told IPS in a recent interview.

GENEVA, Apr 26 (IPS) - The US was the cause of the crisis but has come out better than anyone else in the advanced world and better than many developing countries. During the crisis there was a widespread perception that this was the end of US hegemony. It was end of the dollar as the major reserve currency.

PORT-LOUIS, Mauritius, Apr 26 (IPS) - Fifty year-old Prem Kanoosingh rages against his peers who excessively apply chemicals, mostly pesticides and fertilisers, to their crops. "They make cocktails from several products and they use them on their crops. They are criminals", he shouted at a function where the Food and Agricultural Research and Extension Institute launched a bio-farming project in early March 2016.

ROME, Apr 25 (IPS) - "The objective of extremists is for us to turn on each other our unity is the ultimate rebuke for that bankrupt strategy."

CORZUELA, Argentina, Apr 25 (IPS) - In a semiarid region in the northeast Argentine province of Chaco, small farmers have adopted a simple technique to ensure a steady water supply during times of drought: they harvest the rain and store it in tanks, as part of a climate change adaptation project.