News headlines in January 2017, page 5

ROME, Jan 18 (IPS) - While just eight men are enjoying their huge wealth, equivalent to that of half the world, new forecasts project darker shadows by predicting rising unemployment rates, more precarious jobs and worsening social inequality. To start with, there will be more than 1.4 billion people employed in vulnerable working conditions.

Jan 17 (IPS) - Conventional farming and food production practices in this country are creating serious environmental and public health problems. Every day, an industrial farming system spinning out of control confronts all Americans with serious challenges. Among these are the explosion in toxic algae blooms in sensitive waterways, cancer-causing pesticides on foods we feed our children, the rapid spread of antibiotic-resistant superbugs, and, of course, contaminated drinking water, all courtesy of corporate agribusiness.

ROME, Jan 17 (IPS) - While just eight individuals, all of them men, own the same wealth as 3.6 billion people -- half of world's total population -- it will take 170 years for women to be paid the same as men, warns a new major report on inequality.

NAIROBI, Jan 16 (IPS) - Consider this: every year, nearly one million Kenyans are pushed below the poverty line as a result of unaffordable health care expenses.

ROME, Jan 16 (IPS) - Just eight men own the same wealth as the 3.6 billion people who make up the poorest half of humanity, according to a major new report by an international confederation of 19 organisations working in more than 90 countries.

ROME, Jan 14 (IPS) - Not at all. Or at least not necessarily. The fact is that cash transfer programmes –regular money payments to poor households—are meant to reduce poverty, promote sustainable livelihoods and increase production in the developing world. One in four countries on Earth are applying them. But are they effective?

SANTIAGO, Jan 14 (IPS) - Chile, Latin America's leader in solar energy, is starting the new year with an innovative step: the development of the country´s first citizens solar power plant.

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 13 (IPS) - Low and middle-income countries have far fewer tobacco regulations than high-income countries and are paying the price - with bigger health and economic impacts.

CALI, Colombia, Jan 13 (IPS) - The macroeconomic data for the close of the year provided by the Cuban government confirms the projections that Cuba would enter a recession as a result of the Venezuelan shock.

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 12 (IPS) - Populist leaders pose a dangerous threat to human rights, fuelling and justifying intolerance and abuse across the world, said advocacy group Human Rights Watch during the launch of their annual global report.