News headlines in 2016, page 72

KASKI, Nepal, Apr 25 (IPS) - 42 year-old Saraswati Subedi still remembers the night she almost died in a flash flood. "I heard the cries of my neighbours and ran out of the room with my two children. There was water all around and I thought we were going to die, so I started to pray," says the mother of the three in Karki Tahara – a village by the river Harpan Khola in Nepal's Kaski district.

WASHINGTON, Apr 24 (IPS) - Investing in new entrepreneurs who bring a holistic approach to food sustainability is one way that the food movement can overcome mounting global challenges from environmental degradation to food waste.

UNITED NATIONS, Apr 23 (IPS) - As countries came together at the United Nations this week to sign the Paris Climate Change Agreement, partnerships were forged between countries of the global South to support the implementation of the global treaty.

UNITED NATIONS, Apr 22 (IPS) - An unprecedented 175 countries are expected to sign the Paris Climate Change Agreement here Friday, with 15 developing countries taking the lead by also ratifying the treaty.

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Apr 22 (IPS) - Unlike Wikileaks' exposes, the recent Panama revelations were quite selective, targeted, edited and carefully managed. Most observers attribute this to the political agendas of its mainly American funders. Nevertheless, the revelations have highlighted some problems associated with illicit financial flows, as well as tax evasion and avoidance, including the role of enabling governments, legislation, legal and accounting firms as well as shell companies.

UMM AL-HERAN, Southern Israel, Apr 22 (IPS) - Despite ostensibly freezing the Prawer Plan -- a proposed bill to 'regulate Bedouin settlement in the Negev'-- in 2013, Israel continues to push for forced closure of unrecognised Bedouin villages in this southern region. The village of Umm al-Heran, near the Bedouin township of Hura, is amongst those slated for demolition.

PEMBA, Southern Zambia, Apr 22 (IPS) - In scorching heat, Ellen Kacha, inspects her almost failed maize crop, which now looks promising after a rare occurrence this season -- normal rainfall for at least two weeks.

ROME, Apr 21 (IPS) - The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in partnership with Biodiversity International and the Permanent Mission of Italy to the UN (Rome based UN agencies ?) jointly organized a seminar on "Soils and pulses: symbiosis for life", providing a platform to stakeholders, including governments, research organizations, civil society and the private sector, to deliberate increased pulses production and consumption and its relation to higher productivity and fertility of soils. 2016 is the International Year of Pulses as declared by the United General Assembly.