News headlines in April 2019, page 10

UNITED NATIONS, Apr 03 (IPS) - Young Rohingya refugees are now facing new hardships as the Bangladeshi government cracks down on their education and future opportunities.

ROME, Apr 03 (IPS) - Fifty years ago China was a poor country with little influence in the international sphere and without even a seat at the United Nations. Since then rapid economic growth in China has made it an economic powerhouse that increasingly plays a leading role on the world stage as a trade partners as well as a source of investment.

POHNPEI, Apr 03 (IPS) - Elizabeth Keller is one of the most senior health officials in the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM). She is the current acting chief of Public Health and also the head of the leprosy programme in the island nation's capital of Pohnpei.

PALIKIR, Apr 02 (IPS) - Maylene Ekiek has been working with the Department of Health in the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) for 12 years now. She is the head of the National Leprosy Programme in the Pacific island nation, which still remains one of three, along with the Marshall Islands and Kiribati, that is yet to eliminate leprosy.

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Apr 02 (IPS) - To ensure public acceptability, some benefits accrue to many in the early stages of privatization in order to minimize public resistance. However, in the longer term, privatization tends to enrich a few but typically fails to deliver on its ostensible aims.In most cases of privatization, some outcomes benefit some, which serves to legitimize the change. Nevertheless, overall net welfare improvements are the exception, not the rule.

Never is everyone better off. Rather, some are better off, while others are not, and typically, many are even worse off. The partial gains are typically high, or even negated by overall costs, which may be diffuse, and less directly felt by losers.

JOHANNESBURG, Apr 02 (IPS) - This article is part of a series on the current state of civil society organisations (CSOs), which will be the focus of International Civil Society Week (ICSW), sponsored by CIVICUS, and scheduled to take place in Belgrade, April 8-12.

Lysa John is the secretary-general of CIVICUS, a global alliance of more than 7,000 activists and civil society organisations across 175 countries.

LA PAZ, Apr 02 (IPS) - The ancient Qhara Qhara nation began a battle against the State of Bolivia in defence of its rich ancestral lands, in an open challenge to a government that came to power in 2006 on a platform founded on respect for the values and rights of indigenous peoples.

LONDON, Apr 01 (IPS) - If the government of Sierra Leone's President Julius Maada Bio were to be graded on their first year's performance in office, it is likely that their report card would read, "promising start, which they must surpass in the years ahead".

GENEVA, Apr 01 (IPS) - This article is part of a series on the current state of civil society organisations (CSOs), which will be the focus of International Civil Society Week (ICSW), sponsored by CIVICUS, and scheduled to take place in Belgrade, April 8-12.

Michel Forst is the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, and a speaker at the International Civil Society Week, 8-12 April 2019, in Belgrade, SerbiaThey are ordinary people – mothers, fathers, sisters, sons, daughters, brothers, friends. But for me they are extraordinary people – the ones who have the courage to stand up for everyone else's rights.

They are the human rights defenders.

NEW YORK, Apr 01 (IPS) - Joseph Chamie is former Director of the United Nations Population Division.

Two, four and eight billion people is the extraordinary doubling and redoubling of the world's population that occurred in slightly less than a century. World population, which had grown to 2 billion by 1927, doubled to 4 billion by 1974 and will reach 8 billion by around 2023.