News headlines in May 2017, page 7

HUAQUECHULA, Mexico, May 12 (IPS) - Jilder Morales, a small farmer in Mexico, looks proudly at the young avocado trees that are already over one metre high on her ejido - or communal - land, which already have small green fruit.

ROME, May 11 (IPS) - The news is this: Japan is a global model for healthy diets and it currently has the lowest rate of obesity among developed countries--below four per cent. This is on the one hand. On the other, African eggplant gorongo is often used as toothbrush.

UNITED NATIONS, May 11 (IPS) - Later this month, the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) will take place in Mexico. This meeting provides an important opportunity to reboot global progress on embedding gender equality in disaster risk management and redress deadly exclusion.

UNITED NATIONS, May 10 (IPS) - Following the release of over 80 missing schoolgirls, human rights groups have expressed concerns about their rights and future.

GODE, Ethiopia, May 10 (IPS) - Displaced pastoralists gather around newly arrived drums of brown water as a water truck speeds off to make further deliveries to settlements that have sprung up along the main road running out of Gode, one of the major urban centers in Ethiopia's Somali region.

KUALA LUMPUR and SYDNEY, May 09 (IPS) - The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – collectively drafted and then officially agreed to, at the highest level, by all Member States of the United Nations in September 2015 – involves specific targets to be achieved mainly by 2030. The Agenda seeks to "leave no-one behind" and claims roots in universal human rights. Thus, addressing inequalities and discrimination is central to the SDGs. Poverty and Shared Prosperity 2016: Taking on Inequality is the World Bank's first annual report tracking progress towards the two key SDGs on poverty and inequality.

ROME, May 09 (IPS) - Hundreds of migrants along North African migration routes are being bought and sold openly in modern day ‘slave markets' in Libya, survivors have told the United Nations migration agency, which warned that these reports "can be added to a long list of outrages" in the country. The International Criminal Court is now considering investigating.

PHNOM PENH, May 09 (IPS) - H&M has made promises to raise wage levels and increase worker influence in the garment factories of Cambodia.  The validity of these supposed ambitions is being criticized. "What have they actually achieved? Nothing!", says Sajsa Beslik, sustainibility banker at Swedish Nordea.

ROME/GENEVA, May 09 (IPS) - The role of education in enhancing equality of citizenship rights and diversity within communities affected by inter-communal civil strife will be top on the agenda of a meeting in Geneva on May 12.

BUENOS AIRES, May 09 (IPS) - Since a US Energy Information Administration (EIA) report announced in 2011 that Argentina had some of the world's biggest shale oil and gas reserves, the dream of prosperity has been on the minds of many people in this South American nation where nearly a third of the population lives in poverty.