News headlines in 2019, page 12

BRUSSELS, Nov 21 (IPS) - On 16 November, Gotabaya Rajapaksa – who served as defence secretary during the final phase of Sri Lanka's brutal civil war – won a decisive victory in Sri Lanka's presidential election.

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 21 (IPS) - Afghanistan's first female ambassador to the United Nations this week launched a U.N. group that aims to put women at the centre of peace initiatives in Afghanistan. 

KOHLER, Wisconsin, Nov 21 (IPS) - Each year, World Toilet Day* raises awareness of the crucial role that sanitation plays in reducing disease and creating healthier communities.

At Kohler, we're committed to finding solutions for universal sanitation access by leveraging our design & innovation competencies and partnering with like-minded organizations to bring meaningful innovations to those communities most in need.

STOCKHOLM / ROME, Nov 20 (IPS) - To be president in a country like Bolivia might be like a precarious act performed by a tightrope-dancer between "the Devil and the deep blue sea".

After 23 years as Bolivia's President, Evo Morales finally lost his foothold and ended up as political refugee in Mexico, adding his name to a long list of previous revolutionary exiles, like Augusto Sandino, Fidel Castro, and most prominently – Leon Trotsky. The last one was murdered, though the others came back, something Evo Morales has promised to do:

ARKANSAS, Nov 20 (IPS) - Humankind since almost the time that there is recorded history has grappled with the question of ‘how many is too many?' The response is expectedly complex as it varies across time and space. The pace of population growth was slow till about approximately 250 years or so. It is only since the middle of the eighteenth century that there has been a palpable acceleration in population growth.

VIENNA, Nov 20 (IPS) - A historic conference on the Middle East opened at the United Nations in New York on 18th November and will continue until 22nd November. The Conference on the Establishment of a Middle East Zone Free of Nuclear Weapons and Other Weapons of Mass Destruction is presided over by Ambassador Sima Bahous of Jordan.

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 20 (IPS) - Efforts to wipe polio off the face of the planet took a step forward this week, with a multibillion-dollar fundraiser in the Middle East helping eradication schemes tackle a virus that disproportionately kills and cripples children in poor countries.

The 2019 Global Gender Summit will be held from 25-27 November 2019 in Kigali Rwanda.

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 19 (IPS) - The 15-member UN Security Council (UNSC) stands virtually paralyzed in the face of genocide charges against the government of Myanmar where over 730,000 to one million Rohingya Muslims have been forced to flee to neighboring Bangladesh since a 2016 crackdown by Myanmar's military.

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 19 (IPS) - Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka is Executive Director UN Women If I could have one wish granted, it might well be a total end to rape. That means a significant weapon of war gone from the arsenal of conflict, the absence of a daily risk assessment for girls and women in public and private spaces, the removal of a violent assertion of power, and a far-reaching shift for our societies.