News headlines in 2018, page 23

SRINAGAR, India, Oct 25 (IPS) - Much has changed since Rahti Begum, a fisherwoman in Kashmir, now in her late 60s, first began wandering the streets with a bucketful of fish on her head. She was 17 when her father roped her into the business that became the source of her livelihood for the remainder of her life.

JOHANNESBURG, Oct 25 (IPS) - David Kode is the Advocacy and Campaigns lead with global civil society alliance, CIVICUS.For many African activists based on the continent, getting to a major human rights summit just underway in The Gambia is likely to have been a challenging exercise. The journey by air from many African countries to the capital, Banjul, for the 63rd Session of the African Commission on Human and People's Rights (ACHPR), could have been prohibitively expensive, involved transiting through multiple cities and taken days.

UNITED NATIONS, Oct 25 (IPS) - Abdoulaye Mar Dieye is UN Assistant Secretary General and Director of UNDP's Bureau for Policy and Programme SupportAs the old adage goes: "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure". Nowhere is this more appropriate than when it comes to conflict. Violent conflict causes not only human suffering and destruction but robs entire societies of development and growth.

BUENOS AIRES, Oct 24 (IPS) - "We are the people who are excluded from the system," says Rafael Rivero, sitting in his apartment in a new social housing complex next to one of the largest slums in Buenos Aires. The contrast sums up the complexity of the social reality in the Argentine capital.

CONSETT BAY, Barbados, Oct 24 (IPS) - Allan Bradshaw grew up close to the beach and always knew he wanted to become a fisherman. Now 43 years old, he has been living his childhood dream for 25 years. But in recent years Bradshaw says he has noticed a dramatic decline in the number of flying fish around his hometown of Consett Bay, Barbados.

UNITED NATIONS, Oct 24 (IPS) - The very people who help put food on our tables often face numerous human rights violations, forcing them go to bed hungry.

WASHINGTON DC, Oct 24 (IPS) - Daryl G. Kimball is executive director & Kingston Reif is director for disarmament and threat reduction policy, Arms Control AssociationUnder the influence of his new National Security Advisor, John Bolton, Trump announced Saturday at a campaign rally that he will "terminate" a key nuclear arms control agreement that helped end the Cold War race–the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty in response to a long-running dispute over Russian noncompliance with the treaty.

ANTANANARIVO, Madagascar, Oct 24 (IPS) - Hanitranirina Rarison is an agronomist specializing in food sciences in Fanilon'I Madagasikara. She is also a Girl Guide and actively involved in its nutrition advocacy program.As much as 80 percent of Madagascar's population of 24 million people is involved in agriculture and the country's economy largely depends on the sector, yet 48 percent of households are faced with food insecurity according to the National Nutrition Office (NNO). Over 70 percent of households live below the national poverty line of 535,603 Malagasy ariary per year (1 U.S. dollar equals 3,447.50 ariary).

Oct 23 (IPS) - Millions of migrant workers depend on recruitment agencies to find employment abroad. But many offer dodgy jobs at a high cost. A new site, developed by the International Trade Union Confederation, allows migrant workers to tell each other which agencies to avoid."The idea is to integrate technology into the fight for workers' rights," says Ira Rachmawati.  As project manager with ITUC's division for human and workers' rights, she has led the development of the digital tool Recruitment Advisorwhich the global trade union confederation hopes will improve conditions for the world's 150 million migrant workers.

MOSCOW and KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 23 (IPS) - Although initially obscured by The Economist, among others, the sudden and unprecedented increase in Russian adult male mortality during 1992-1994 is no longer denied. Instead, the debate is now over why?

Having advocated ‘shock therapy', a ‘big bang', ‘sudden' or rapid post-Soviet transition, Jeffrey Sachs and others have claimed that the sudden collapse in Russian adult male life expectancy was due to a sudden increase in alcohol consumption, playing into popular foreign images of vodka-binging Russian men.