News headlines in September 2019, page 4

CAPE TOWN, South Africa, Sep 20 (IPS) - IPS Correspondent Crystal Oderson took to the streets in Cape Town, South Africa and chatted to children about the #ClimateStrike.From Nigeria, to Kenya to the Democratic Republic of Congo, to South Africa, thousands of African climate campaigners have taken to the streets joining millions globally for the global Climate Strike ahead of the United Nations Climate Action Summit 2019, which starts in New York next week.

HYDERABAD, TELANGANA, India, Sep 20 (IPS) - As companies begin to focus on hiring people with disabilities, we need to shape how they think and act on this interest.

GENEVA, Sep 20 (IPS) - The proliferation of political crises and armed conflicts in every corner of the world does not exclude religious groups, which unfortunately also contribute to animosities, intolerance and hatred. The Middle East has been on the hit-list of violet extremist groups for decades.

One telling example is Syria where clashes have on occasion taken religious or denominational overtones, fracturing Syrian society for decades to come. They have given rise to sectarian divisions along ethnic and religious lines in a country where inter-religious harmony once prevailed. We observe a similar situation in Iraq.

In Myanmar, government security forces unleased a brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing and hatred against the Muslim Rohingya population. The military crackdown on the Rohingya community has significantly aggravated inter-communal violence in the country.

And in the Central African Republic, armed militant groups sloganizing misrepresentations of Islam and Christianity, commit abuses and human rights violations on each other on a daily basis.

LONDON, Sep 20 (IPS) - In an alarming imbalance struggling families in rural Bangladesh spend almost US$2 billion a year on preventing climate-related disasters or repairing damage caused by climate change ― far more than either the Bangladesh government or international bodies.

ENTRE RIOS DO OESTE, Brasil, Sep 20 (IPS) - Biogas has the potential to provide 36 percent of the electricity consumed in Brazil or replace 70 percent of diesel if purified as biomethane, according to the Brazilian Association of Biogas and Biomethane (Abiogas).

Sep 19 (IPS) - "Khadija" was just 8 years old when Boko Haram fighters attacked her village in northeast Nigeria and took her by force to their camp. Her abductors tried to marry her and other captives to members of the armed Islamist group, she told me. When the captives refused, they were locked in a room.  

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 19 (IPS) - A New York library appeared to bow to pressure this week when it canceled an event that was being co-hosted by Saudi Arabia's crown prince Mohammad bin Salman, who is accused of a range of human rights abuses.

KATHMANDU, Sep 19 (IPS) - New analysis of historical satellite imagery indicates that Nepal's forest area has nearly doubled, from 26% of land area in 1992 to 45% in 2016. The midhills have experienced the strongest resurgence, although forests have also expanded in the Tarai and in the mountains. This makes Nepal an exception to the global trend of deforestation in developing countries.

Rome and Massachusetts, Sep 19 (IPS) - In a life peppered with tragedy, Mary Shelley wrote in 1818, "Have I not suffered enough, that you seek to increase my misery?" That this accurately sums up the fate of many women in South Asia who suffer a major health shock such as a serious illness or a disability or both, is hard to dispute.

STOCKHOLM, Sep 19 (IPS) - In an interview with Dan Smith, Director of the renowned Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) and Professor of Peace and Conflict at the University of Manchester. The native Londoner, he has been researching conflicts and peace for decades and served in the UN Peacebuilding Fund Advisory Group, which he chaired for two years.