News headlines in April 2018, page 8

WASHINGTON DC, Apr 06 (IPS) - Katie Lebling, Mengpin Ge and Johannes Friedrich, World Resources InstituteWhich countries have emitted the most greenhouse gases? The quick answer is, "It depends." A more definitive response is tougher than you may expect. Many factors inform the answer.

UNITED NATIONS, Apr 05 (IPS) - The international community has pledged over two billion dollars towards urgently needed humanitarian assistance to Yemen during a UN event.

NEW YORK, Apr 05 (IPS) - Ian Williams is a senior analyst who has written for newspapers and magazines around the world, including the Australian, The Independent, New York Observer, The Financial Times and The Guardian. He is the author of UNtold: The Real Story of the United Nations in Peace and War*.President Trump's nomination of John Bolton as his National Security Advisor highlights the deep irrationality of this White House's global agenda. Apparently, the world has hitherto been spared Bolton's robust sabotage only because the President has an eccentric visceral antipathy to his mustache, but so far could not find another, clean-shaven, candidate in the rapidly draining pool of applicants for White House jobs.

NEW DELHI, Apr 05 (IPS) - The Indian Union Cabinet has cleared the long-awaited Trafficking of Persons (Prevention, Protection and Rehabilitation) Bill, which proposes an imprisonment of 10 years to life term for those trafficking humans for the purpose of begging, marriage, prostitution or labour, among others. The bill will become a law once cleared by both houses of Parliament.

NEW YORK, Apr 05 (IPS) - Joseph Chamie is an independent consulting demographer and a former director of the United Nations Population Division.Premarital sex, defined as voluntary sexual intercourse between unmarried persons, is increasing worldwide. While traditional values, religious instructions and the laws of some countries continue to prescribe abstinence until marriage, the rapid societal changes that have occurred across all regions during the past half-century have resulted in the growing prevalence and acceptability of premarital sex.

SEOUL, South Korea, Apr 05 (IPS) - Park Won-soon is Mayor of Seoul, a city recognized as a role model for megacitiesIn a bid to reduce its nuclear energy dependence, Seoul embarked on a massive energy reduction initiative—shaped by citizen participation—in 2012.

MEXICO CITY, Apr 04 (IPS) - Statements by U.S. President Donald Trump against Mexico have begun to permeate the presidential election campaign in this Latin American country, forcing the candidates to pronounce themselves on the matter.

WASHINGTON DC, Apr 04 (IPS) - Homi Kharas is Interim Vice President and Director -Global Economy and Development and Brina Seidel is Research Analyst - Global Economy and Development, The Brookings Institution*In 2013, Christoph Lakner and Branko Milanovic published a graph—quickly dubbed the "elephant chart"—that depicts changes in income distribution across the world between 1988 and 2008.

GENEVA, Apr 04 (IPS) - Secretary-General António Guterres, in his address to the Pledging Conference on Yemen.Thank you all for being here today to show your solidarity with the women, men, girls and boys of Yemen. And I want to thank my co-chairs, the Governments of Sweden and Switzerland, for hosting this conference for the second year and for their continued humanitarian commitment.

ROME, Apr 04 (IPS) - Khaled left Syria in 2015, when his country was already in its fourth year of war. He is 27 years old and can clearly remember what his life was like then in Damascus: a happy life, with a happy family, in a happy country.