News headlines in August 2019, page 6

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 12 (IPS) - Being fluent in a world language is a desirable skill in modern day society. However, some languages are suffering and in danger of extinction -- namely those of the indigenous peoples.

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 12 (IPS) - An old adage passed on by veteran U.N. staff to younger recruits is, "Do nothing whenever possible. It's safer." For a junior officer that might indeed be career-enhancing. 

SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 12 (IPS) - The harmful effects of falling corporate tax rates have been acknowledged in a recent International Monetary Fund (IMF) research paper. This trend, since the early 1980s, has been especially detrimental for developing countries, which rely on direct taxation much more than developed economies.

NEW DELHI, Aug 12 (IPS) - "The Perfect Storm" was a dire prediction that by 2030 food shortages, scarce water and insufficient energy resources together with climate change would threaten to unleash public unrest, cross-border conflicts and mass migration from worst-affected regions.

DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania, Aug 10 (IPS) - Khadija Zuberi, 23, from Ruaha Mbuyuni village, Iringa in Tanzania's southern highlands is a single mother to her four-year-old son, Hashim.

KORCHI/GADCHIROLI, India, Aug 09 (IPS) - Kumaribai Jamkatan, 51, has been fighting for women's land rights since 1987. Though the constitution of India grants equal rights to men and women, women first started to stake their claim for formal ownership of land only after 2005–the year the government accorded legal rights to daughters to be co-owners of family-owned land.

KORCHI/GADCHIROLI, India, Aug 09 (IPS) - Jam Bai, an Indigenous farmer from Korchi village in western India, is a woman in hurry. After two months of waiting, the rains have finally come and the rice saplings for her paddy fields must be sown this week while the land is still soft.

BRUSSELS, Aug 09 (IPS) - Sharan Burrow is General Secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC)

The World Bank claims poverty is decreasing around the world but UN research shows it depends on what you measure. If we are serious about reducing poverty, we need to start by properly identifying it.

KORCHI, India, Aug 09 (IPS) - On the International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples, IPS correspondent Stella Paul speaks to indigenous farmer Jam Bai about what it means to own her own land.

NAIROBI, Aug 09 (IPS) - The villagers living on the foothills of Mount Kenya have a belief: If they burn the forest, the rains will come.