News headlines in October 2019, page 3

Oct 25 (IPS) - Cheap and reliable solar technology has bolstered the use of tubewells in Sindh; but as groundwater is sucked out rapidly, life is under a grave threat

At the southern end of Pakistan's Sindh-Balochistan border near the Kirthar mountain range, Sindh's Kachho desert has witnessed an unprecedented surge in the use of solar-powered tubewells for groundwater extraction in agriculture.

UNITED NATIONS, Oct 24 (IPS) - As massive protests escalated worldwide last month, millions of children walked out of schools to demonstrate against the lackadaisical response – primarily from world leaders --to the ongoing climate emergency resulting in floods, droughts, typhoons, heat waves and wildfires devastating human lives.

STOCKHOLM / ROME, Oct 24 (IPS) - On October 11, the Norwegian Nobel Prize Committee announced that this year´s Peace Prize is awarded to Ethiopia´s prime minister Abiy Ahmed: "For his efforts to achieve peace and international cooperation, and in particular for his decisive initiative to resolve the border conflict with neighbouring Eritrea."¹ Let us hope that Abiy remains a worthy Peace Prize winner and that warfare and human suffering on the Horn of Africa will finally come to an end.

ABUJA / NEW YORK, Oct 24 (IPS) - Hamza Idris, an editor with the Nigerian Daily Trust, was at the newspaper's central office on January 6 when the military arrived looking for him.

UNITED NATIONS, Oct 24 (IPS) - A partnership between United Nations and African Union (AU) agencies will help African economies insure themselves against the droughts and other extreme weather events that plague the continent, organisers say.

KHULNA, Bangladesh, Oct 23 (IPS) - October 24 is International Freshwater Dolphin Day. Last year Bangladesh celebrated the international day for the first time, but the country has been instituting policies and programmes for years to protect the Sundarbans — home of Asia's last two remaining freshwater dolphin species.

IPS Correspondent Rafiqul Islam travelled to Khulna to file this report. Israfil Boyati lives along the shoreline of the Bay of Bengal.In the past he used to catch fish in the canals and rivers of Bangladesh's Sundarbans mangrove forest — one of the world's largest and a habitat to many endangered species, including the endangered Bengal tigers and freshwater dolphins.

NEW YORK, Oct 23 (IPS) - In a landmark report that reinforces legal standards to combat online hate, the UN's monitor for freedom of expression calls on governments and companies to move away from standardless policies and inconsistent enforcement, and to align their laws and practices against ‘hate speech' with international human rights law.

The prevalence of online hate poses challenges to everyone, first and foremost the marginalised individuals who are its principal targets. Unfortunately, States and companies are failing to prevent ‘hate speech' from becoming the next ‘fake news', an ambiguous and politicised term subject to governmental abuse and company discretion.

WASHINGTON DC, Oct 23 (IPS) - New information published in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report shows that action taken by just 11 countries – most of them low- or middle-income – has resulted in 20 million fewer adult tobacco users in 2017 compared with 2008. Seventy percent of the world's tobacco users live in low- and middle-income countries.

UNITED NATIONS, Oct 23 (IPS) - States and companies are "failing" when it comes to combating online hate, the UN independent rights expert, or Special Rapporteur, on freedom of speech and expression said ahead of the launch of a landmark report to reinforce legal standards for internet spaces.

UNITED NATIONS, Oct 22 (IPS) - Sub-Saharan African migrants who risk perilous sea crossings to Europe are often assumed to be illiterate, jobless chancers in desperate bids to flee stagnation and rampant corruption in their home countries. But a survey of some 2,000 irregular African migrants in Europe found them to be more educated than expected, while many of them were leaving behind jobs back home that paid better-than-average wages.