News headlines in September 2017, page 8

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 09 (IPS) - A dramatic increase in the number of refugees fleeing Myanmar is placing a huge strain on already very limited resources in Bangladesh, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said.

BUENOS AIRES, Sep 08 (IPS) - Is it possible for the financial sector of Latin America and the Caribbean not only to think about earning money but also to contribute to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development? The answer was sought in Buenos Aires, Argentina, at a regional roundtable on sustainable finance.

WALLINGFORD, CT, US, Sep 08 (IPS) - The worldwide impact cancer has is well known. It is the second leading cause of death globally, and according to the World Health Organizationwas responsible for 8.8 million deaths in 2015. Globally, nearly 1 in 6 deaths are due to cancer and of those deaths approximately 70 percent occur in low and middle-income countries.

RUMBEK, South Sudan, Sep 08 (IPS) - Elizabeth Ayumpou Balang is a teacher at a nursery and primary school in Rumbek, a town in central South Sudan. It is her dream job, but it did not come easily. Like many girls in South Sudan, Ms. Balang was married, and became a mother, while just a teenager.

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 08 (IPS) - In February, when the government of Somalia sounded an alarm to the UN about risks of a famine in the country, the UN's Office of Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), besides quickly shuffling a response team, was acting from a steep sense of history. The Office, instead of sending out massive aid packages, distributed cash vouchers to families who could spend it to buy goods according to their needs.

GENEVA, Sep 08 (IPS) - The vision of a literate world has guided the United Nations in its efforts to eliminate illiteracy worldwide. According to UNESCO, the world literacy rate now stands at 91% up from 79% in 1980. In the Arab region, the literacy rate is currently at 86%; a 22% increase from 1980 where the literacy rate stood at 64%. Although world society has witnessed significant progress in eradicating illiteracy, approximately 750 million adults and 264 million children worldwide are still considered as illiterate. Thus, the cloud of world illiteracy overshadows the geography of world poverty. Nonetheless, the Sustainable Development Goals have translated the vision of a literate world into a concrete action-plan: Sustainable Development Goal 4.6 calls upon all member States of the United Nations to ensure that youth, both men and women, "achieve literacy and numeracy" by 2030. In the words of formerSecretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan

BHUBANESWAR, India, Sep 07 (IPS) - Dauntlessly crusading against curbs on freedom of speech, fifty-five-year-old Indian journalist Gauri Lankesh was gunned down at her very doorstep in Bengaluru city on the evening of Sep. 5, taking three bullets of the seven fired in her lungs and heart. She was shot from just three feet away.

CAMBRIDGE, Sep 07 (IPS) - "Ivory is like a drug and you have to be careful with it. If you are serious and desire it, you can get all you want, but you have to be patient and act very carefully," a Cameroonian man selling ivory items from a network of shops across Central Africa, told TRAFFIC investigators in 2014.

ROSEAU, Dominica, Sep 06 (IPS) - The tiny Caribbean island of Dominica has moved one step closer to its dream of constructing a geothermal plant, a project that is expected to reduce the country's dependence on fossil fuels.

WASHINGTON DC, Sep 06 (IPS) - North Korea's 5.9 to 6.3 magnitude nuclear test explosion September 3 marks a new and more dangerous era in East Asia.