News headlines in October 2019, page 4

BRUSSELS, Oct 22 (IPS) - The number of newly elected Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) who oppose women's reproductive rights, gender equality, sexuality education, same sex marriage and the Council of Europe Convention on Violence Against Women (Istanbul Convention) stands at around 30 per cent.

KUALA LUMPUR and SYDNEY, Oct 22 (IPS) - Public or state development banking will be vital to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, argues UNCTAD's Trade and Development Report 2019 (TDR 2019).

Ongoing World Bank led efforts seek to leverage private finance via shadow banking by using public money to guarantee handsome returns managed by giant investment houses. Such financialization introduce new costs and risks to financing investments for sustainable development, decent work and renewable energy.

GENEVA, Oct 22 (IPS) - In June 2019, the Secretary-General of the UN, António Guterres, launched the UN Strategy and Plan of Action on Hate Speech. Respect for human rights, without any form of discrimination is one of the core fundamentals of this strategy.

SANTA CATALINA/SUSQUES, Argentina, Oct 22 (IPS) - "On moonless nights it was very difficult to walk around this town," says Celia Vilte, a teacher from San Francisco, a highlands village of just 54 people in the extreme northwest of Argentina whose centre is not a town square but 40 solar panels, which provide one hundred percent of its electricity.

NEW YORK, Oct 21 (IPS) - Four years ago, UN member states proclaimed their ambitions for development in a document named "Transforming Our World", also known as Agenda 2030.

Today, according to several assessments including of the UN's inter-agency task force on financing for development (FfD) transformation has fallen off-track. It has received too little money, political commitment and action to change the workings of the global economy. Agenda 2030 spells out the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) needed to ‘transform our world'.

VIENNA, Oct 21 (IPS) - IPS Correspondent Ed Holt speaks to PAULINE ADES-MEVEL, Head of European Union & Balkan desk at RS.

Rising populism, anti-media rhetoric from politicians, cyber-harassment of journalists and physical attacks are among the reasons why press freedom in Europe is on the decline, according to the global media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF).

UNITED NATIONS, Oct 21 (IPS) - A landmark UN migration study published on Monday shows that 93 per cent of Africans making the journey to European countries along irregular routes, would do it again, despite facing often life-threatening danger.

DES MOINES, United States, Oct 21 (IPS) - Experts vaunted new strains of seeds, drone aircraft and other technological breakthroughs as solutions-in-the-making for farmers in Africa, where hunger, drought and food price hikes are continent-wide problems.

WASHINGTON DC, Oct 18 (IPS) - The Trump administration is reportedly on the verge of withdrawing from the 1992 Open Skies Treatyaccording to lawmakers and media reports. Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, first sounded the public alarm in an Oct. 7 letter to National Security Advisor Robert C. O'Brien.

MOSCOW, JERUSALEM/BEIRUT/NEW DELHI/TOKYO, Oct 18 (IPS) - On the 8th of October, the United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres warned that the organisation is running out of money by the end of October - "member States have paid only 70 percent of the total amount needed for regular budget".