News headlines in 2018, page 38

WAGENINGEN, The Netherlands, Sep 05 (IPS) - "This season, the month of May was particularly hot and dry," says Leo De Jong, a commercial farmer in Zeewolde, in Flevopolder, the Netherlands. Flevopolder is in the province of Flevoland, the largest site of land reclamation in the world. Here a hectare of land costs up to 100,000 Euros. "At the moment, we are spending between 20,000 and 25,000 Euros per week on irrigation."

Sep 05 (IPS) - The Philippines has been ranked one of the world's ten worst countries for workers' rights. Arbetet Global reports from a country which labour union activists brand as fascist.

"Isn't it cool? I get some hostile looks when I walk around in it, but other people come up asking where they can buy one,"  Josua Matas says of his T-shirt, which reads "Resist dictatorship".  He is the Secretary General of the labour union umbrella organisation Sentro and does not hold back when he speaks about the Philippines' hard-line president, Rodrigo Duterte.

LIMA, Sep 04 (IPS) - This article is published ahead of the International Day of Indigenous Women, celebrated September 5, which marks the execution of indigenous guerrilla leader Bartolina Sisa.

"At the age of 18 I was the first female leader in my organisation, my grandfather who was a male chauvinist demanded that I be beaten because I was sitting among men," said Teresita Antazú, an indigenous leader of the Yanesha people in Peru's Amazon region.

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Sep 04 (IPS) - Advocates made exaggerated claims that privatization would reduce governments' fiscal problems while ensuring more efficient, productive and competitive economies by promoting private entrepreneurship, innovation and investments.

Several arguments have been advanced to justify privatization since the 1980s. Privatization has been advocated as an easy means to:

1. Reduce the government's financial and administrative burden, particularly by undertaking and maintaining services and infrastructure;
2. Promote competition, improve efficiency and increase productivity in providing public services;
3. Stimulate private entrepreneurship and investment to accelerate economic growth;
4. Help reduce the public sector's presence and size, with its monopolistic tendencies and bureaucratic support.

WASHINGTON DC, Sep 04 (IPS) - Daryl G. Kimball is Executive Director, Arms Control Association.

Five long years have passed since U.S. President Barack Obama proposed and Russian President Vladimir Putin unfortunately rejected negotiations designed to cut their excessive nuclear stockpiles by one-third below the limits set by the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START).

LONDON, Sep 04 (IPS) - Essam Yassin Mohammed is Principal Researcher at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED).

Over-fishing, warming oceans and plastic pollution dominate the headlines when it comes to the state of the seas. Most of the efforts to protect the life of the ocean and the livelihoods of those who depend on it are limited to exclusive economic zones – the band of water up to 200 nautical miles from the coast.

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 04 (IPS) - After the release of a scathing report on Myanmar's human rights violations, next steps to achieve accountability and justice remain elusive and uncertain.  

BEIJING, Sep 03 (IPS) - António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations, in an address to the China-Africa Cooperation Summit in Beijing.

This Forum on China-Africa Cooperation is an embodiment of two major priorities of the United Nations: to pursue fair globalization and to promote development that leaves no one behind in the context of a rules-based system of international relations supported by strong multilateral institutions.

GEORGETOWN, Guyana, Sep 03 (IPS) - Recent huge offshore oil discoveries are believed to have set Guyana– one of the poorest countries in South America–on a path to riches. But they have also highlighted the country's development challenges and the potential impact of an oil boom.

DHAKA, Aug 31 (IPS) - After the recent student uprising in Bangladesh, and despite increased policing on the streets and amendments to the traffic laws, there has been criticism that things have not changed significantly enough to make the country's roads safer.