News headlines in April 2018, page 3

UNITED NATIONS, Apr 24 (IPS) - Amina J. Mohammed, Deputy Secretary-General, United Nations, addressing the Forum on Financing for DevelopmentThe global economy is strengthening. A broad-based economic upturn has underpinned progress in many areas. But significant weaknesses and medium-term risks in the world economy continue to challenge our efforts. As a result, the development prospects of hundreds of millions of people remain in jeopardy.

NEW YORK, Apr 24 (IPS) - Jeffrey Hardy is Director General, Transnational Alliance to Combat Illicit Trade*Illicit trade in any of its forms—alcohol, tobacco, pharmaceuticals, diamonds, timber, ivory and oil—sits at the nexus of two social-economic disorders that challenge global stability.

Apr 24 (IPS) - Dr. Frank Rijsberman is Director-General, Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI)On April 19-20, I attended the second Global Bioeconomy Summit in Berlin. Bioeconomy is currently a hot topic for scientists and policymakers. Rapid advances in molecular biology combined with big data and artificial intelligence have resulted in big jumps in our understanding of living organisms as well as organic matter, the biomass produced by plants and animals, at the level of their DNA. That has gone hand in hand with technologies that allow scientists and industry to manipulate, easily, everything from enzymes to bacteria to plants and animals.

NEW DELHI, Apr 24 (IPS) - Geetika Dang is an independent researcher; Vani S. Kulkarni is lecturer in Sociology, University of Pennsylvania, USA; and Raghav Gaiha is (Hon.) professorial research fellow, Global Development Institute, University of Manchester, England.Kidnappings and abductions have soared since 2001. The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) shows that their share in total crimes against women nearly doubled from 10% in 2001 to 19% in 2016. More striking is the fact that 11 women were kidnapped or abducted every day in Delhi in 2016. What these statistics do not reveal are brutal gang-rapes of kidnapped minors and women, multiple sales to husbands who treat them as animals, unwanted pregnancies, police inaction, and frequent abandonment with nowhere to go—not even to their maternal homes—because of the stigma of a being a "prostitute".

RIO DE JANEIRO, Apr 24 (IPS) - An energy transition is spreading around the globe. But in Brazil it will be characterised by sharp contrasts, with large hydroelectric plants being replaced by solar microgenerators and government decisions being replaced by family and community decision-making.

LUSAKA, Apr 24 (IPS) - Trees are a vital component in the ecosystem—they not only give oxygen, store carbon, stabilise the soil and give refuge to wildlife, but also provide materials for tools, shelter and ultimately, food for both animals and human beings.

NAIROBI, Kenya, Apr 23 (IPS) - Siddharth Chatterjee is the United Nations Resident Coordinator to Kenya. Grotesque and barbaric, is the only way to describe the rape and murder of an 8 year old child, in a country where women and girls are traditionally revered as Goddesses.

ROME, Apr 23 (IPS) - At a time when funding for UN agencies is on the decline – and also threatened with cuts by the Trump administration—the Indian government has made an additional contribution of $50 million to development funding.

WASHINGTON DC, Apr 23 (IPS) - Mengpin Ge is a Research Analyst and Kelly Levin, a Senior Associate at World Resources InstituteIn the lead up to the historic Paris Agreement on climate change, adopted in 2015, more than 160 countries and the European Union submitted their own plans to address climate change, known as Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs).

ROME, Apr 23 (IPS) - Atik and Said have many things in common. They are both from Bangladesh, both are about the same age , in their thirties and , they are both migrant workers in an Italian restaurant in the heart of Rome, a stone's throw from Saint Peter's Basilica. They are not the only migrants working in the food service industry in Italy, where most of the pizza makers today are Egyptians and most of the Chefs are either Bangladeshis or North Africans. This is an interesting phenomenon in a country known for its cuisine where many of the Chefs today are not locals but foreigners.