News headlines in April 2019, page 2

UNITED NATIONS, Apr 29 (IPS) - In light of land degradation and climate change, the protection of the environment is crucial—but the protection of the very people working tirelessly and with much risk to preserve nature should be just as important.

UNITED NATIONS, Apr 29 (IPS) - The United States dropped a political bombshell when President Donald Trump announced his administration would withdraw from the historic Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) which the former Obama administration signed in September 2013.

PEMBA, Zambia, Apr 26 (IPS) - It is slightly after 3pm on a hot Wednesday afternoon in Chipata district, eastern Zambia, and a group of women are gathering for a meeting. It is Elizabeth Tembo's turn to stand amongst the the other mothers like her and share key lessons on nutrition.

MELBOURNE, Apr 26 (IPS) - H.L.D. Mahindapala is a Sri Lankan journalist who was Editor, Sunday Observer (1990-1994), President, Sri Lanka Working Journalists' Association (1991-1993) and Secretary-General, South Asia Media Association (1994).

The history of terrorism in Sri Lanka reveals a clear pattern. The first to take up arms in the post-Independent era were the misguided Sinhala youth. They were educated youth desperately running in search of a quick solution to establish their classless paradise. Their violence did not take them anywhere.

UNITED NATIONS, Apr 26 (IPS) - When US political leaders urged the Trump administration to either reduce or cut off arms supplies to Saudi Arabia – largely as a punishment for its indiscriminate bombings of civilians in the four-year old military conflict in Yemen—President Trump provided a predictable response: "If we don't sell arms to Saudi Arabia, the Chinese and the Russians will."

UNITED NATIONS, Apr 25 (IPS) - Hans Wetzels is a writer for Africa Renewal* published by the United Nations

When Ecuadorean diplomat Luis Gallegos first proposed a "Binding Treaty on Business and Human Rights," many countries and environmental activists welcomed the idea with open arms.

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria, Apr 25 (IPS) - This is part of a series of features from across the globe on human trafficking. IPS coverage is supported by the Riana Group.

"They forcefully took us away and kept us like prisoners," Lydia Musa, a former Boko Haram captive who was abducted at the age of 14 during an attack on her village in Gwoza, in Nigeria's north eastern Borno State, tells IPS. Musa and two other underaged girls were abducted and forced to marry Boko Haram fighters in spite of their protests that they were too young to marry.

WASHINGTON DC, Apr 24 (IPS) - Olga Stankova is with the Communications Department at the International Monetary Fund (IMF)

Within a few short months after taking up her post as governor of the Central Bank of Russia in 2013, Elvira Nabiullina faced a growing economic crisis brought on by plunging oil prices, geopolitical tensions, and sanctions.

UNITED NATIONS, Apr 24 (IPS) - Luis Felipe Lopez-Calva is UN Assistant Secretary-General and UNDP Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean

Sustainability is constitutive of the concept of development. Just as economist Amartya Sen has argued that there is no point in discussing the relationship between development and democracy, because democracy is constitutive of the concept of development, there is no point of trying to disentangle sustainability from the notion of development itself.

USPANTÁN, Guatemala, Apr 23 (IPS) - In the stifling heat, Diego Matom takes the bread trays out of the oven and carefully places them on wooden shelves, happy that his business has prospered since his village in northwest Guatemala began to generate its own electricity.