News headlines in January 2019, page 4

PUNE, India, Jan 21 (IPS) - One of the most laudable initiatives of the current government's regime is the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) that was launched on Oct 2, 2014, with a larger vision of a clean India. The critical aspect of the mission was that—unlike many of the movements that preceded it—this had a measurable outcome (making India open defecation free) and a firm timeline (by 2019).

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 21 (IPS) - While the modern agricultural system has helped stave off famines and feed the world's 7 billion residents, the way we eat and produce food is posing a threat to future populations' food security.

SEOUL, Jan 21 (IPS) - Despite the international rise of South Korean businesses like Samsung, Hyundai and LG as global powerhouses, the corporate culture in this East Asian nation is often known to have a vertically rigid command line.

BUENOS AIRES, Jan 21 (IPS) - "Our philosophy is based on two principles: zero tolerance of pesticides or bosses," says Leandro Ladrú, while he puts tomatoes and carrots in the ecological bag held by a customer, in a large market in the Argentine capital, located between warehouses and rusty old railroad cars.

HAMILTON, Canada, Jan 18 (IPS) - Vladimir Smakhtin is Director, and Manzoor Qadir is Assistant Director, of the UN University Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH) in Canada, hosted by the Government of Canada and McMaster University. Edward Jones, who worked on the paper at UNU-INWEH, is now a researcher at Wageningen University, The Netherlands

Starting from a few, mostly Middle Eastern facilities in the 1960s, today almost 16,000 desalination plants are in operation in 177 countries, producing 95 million cubic meters of freshwater every day - equal to about half the flow over Niagara Falls.

BERLIN, Jan 18 (IPS) - Daniel Mittler is the Political Director of Greenpeace International and is on the steering committee of the global Fight Inequality alliance.

Four of the top five most impactful threats in this year's World Economic Forum´s Global Risks report are related to climate change. The report warns that we are "sleepwalking to disaster" . But that is not true.

The disaster is already here, it´s not something we are still walking towards. Climate change is no future threat, it´s a current one. We have entered a new phase, one in which the impacts are coming faster, with greater intensity.

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 18 (IPS) - IPS Correspondent Tharanga Yakupitiyage interviews United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) Coordinator of Freshwater, Land, and Climate Branch TIM CHRISTOPHERSENFrom expansive evergreen forests to lush tropical forests, the Earth's forests are disappearing on a massive scale. While deforestation poses a significant problem to the environment and climate, trees also offer a solution.

STOCKHOLM, Sweden, Jan 17 (IPS) - Professor Jan Lundqvist is Senior Advisor at the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI)

Concerns about the supply side of food systems are shifting from insufficient production and supply, to issues likely to affect food production in the medium and long term, such as water risks, global warming and environmental consequences.

BENIN CITY, Nigeria, Jan 17 (IPS) - The International Organization For Migration (IOM) has taken its campaign against irregular migration to schools in Nigeria. The school campaigns are meant to educate children who are among victims of human traffickers.

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 17 (IPS) - A survey of sexual harassment at the United Nations has uncomfortably shifted the focus to some of the senior UN officials who have either escaped censure – or punishment-- despite a rash of charges against them, including abuse and misconduct.