IDEALS

RIO DE JANEIRO, (Nov. 11, 2009) IPS/GIN – For over a century and
a half, Brazil has led the world in green coffee bean production
and exports, without ever achieving similar success with processed
beans. Some of the internal and external hurdles reflect the
dilemma of reliance on agricultural commodities for export revenue.

The Brazilian roasting industry has once again asked the government
to lift restrictions on imports of coffee, something it has long
demanded, because it wants to blend local beans with coffee beans
from abroad in order to increase foreign sales of roasted coffee. Read the rest of this entry →

FREETOWN, (Nov. 11, 2009) IPS/GIN – It may be seven years after
the country’s civil war, but Sierra Leone is still battling to
obtain an independent judiciary.

Recent claims that the president’s office had inside knowledge of
the date a judgment, in a case brought by the media, would be
handed down has left many wondering if the country has independent
courts. Read the rest of this entry →

BUENOS AIRES, (Nov. 11, 2009) IPS/GIN – Women taking part in the
Storytelling Grandmothers Program aimed at awakening a love of
reading among youngsters from poor families in Argentina have
nothing but praise for the program.

Every week, a volunteer reads to a group of children, mainly in
public primary schools in slum neighbourhoods. “They are so
affectionate, and they wait for us with so much excitement,”
73-year-old Federica Orellana, who has been volunteering with the
program since 2004 in the northeastern province of Chaco, told IPS. Read the rest of this entry →

CAPE TOWN, (Nov. 11, 2009) IPS/GIN – The Anti-Homosexuality Bill
under consideration in Uganda was sparked by a conference in
Kampala earlier this year at which fundamentalist Christians from
the U.S. identified homosexuality as a threat to “family values”.

The draconian law will institute the death penalty for “aggravated
homosexuality” and criminalise human rights work. Read the rest of this entry →

MAPUTO, (Nov. 11, 2009) IPS/GIN – The incumbent, President Armando
Guebuza, has won the Mozambican 2009 elections in a landslide,
obtaining three quarters of the votes, according to official
results.

Leopoldo da Costa, the chairman of Mozambique’s National Elections
Commission (CNE), announced that Frelimo’s Guebuza has been
re-elected for second five-year term, winning 75.4 percent of the
votes. Read the rest of this entry →

MIDRAND, South Africa, (Nov. 11, 2009) IPS/GIN – Water is a
resource that binds people together, for better or worse.

The care taken to prevent pesticides or sewage from washing into
water supplies in one place, or decisions made in another about
managing its flow to generate electricity or irrigate crops: it’s
clear that water issues spill over boundaries. Read the rest of this entry →

NEW DELHI, (Nov. 12, 2009) IPS/GIN – It is hard to say whether the
Dalai Lama’s sojourn this week in India’s Arunachal Pradesh
state-which China claims as southern Tibet-is a purely spiritual
exercise or a trip with a deep political mission.

Dali Lama

“The problem is that every move of the Dalai Lama is closely
watched by Beijing and attempts are made to give a political colour
to what may in fact be a religious exercise to visit followers of
Lamaistic Buddhism spread through the Himalayan region and around
the world,” says Rajeswari Rajagopalan, a senior fellow at the
independent Organiser Research Foundation. Read the rest of this entry →

WASHINGTON, (Nov. 11, 2009) IPS/GIN – U.S. President Barack Obama’s
attendance at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum
leaders’ meeting in Singapore next week will chart a new direction
for U.S. participation in Asian multilateral diplomacy and call
attention to the new administration’s policy of engagement with the
reclusive military-led government in Burma.

Next week’s summit between Obama and Southeast Asian leaders, which
will occur on the sidelines of the APEC summit, signifies a major
shift in U.S. diplomacy towards Southeast Asia from the approach
of the George W. Bush administration, which focused on
counterterrorism and military cooperation but largely ignored
regional diplomatic frameworks, while China expanded its economic
ties to the region. Read the rest of this entry →

NEW YORK, (Nov. 11, 2009) IPS/GIN – A U.S. citizen from New Jersey
is seeking compensation and punitive damages for the actions of two
FBI officials and two government agents who allegedly orchestrated
his arrest and transfer among three different prisons in Africa
where he says he was tortured and abused.

Amir Meshal, 24, is the U.S.-born son of Muslim immigrants from
Egypt. According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU),
which filed the lawsuit on his behalf, Meshal was arrested after
fleeing hostilities in Somalia in 2006, secretly imprisoned in
inhumane conditions and subjected to harsh interrogations by U.S.
officials over 30 times in three different countries before
ultimately being released four months later without charge, Read the rest of this entry →

HANOI, (Nov. 12, 2009) IPS/GIN – Vietnam will be one of five
nations most affected by climate change. Worst-case scenarios see
large parts of the low-lying and flood-prone Mekong Delta area,
which produces much of the nation’s rice crop, flooded.

A one-metre rise in sea level, predicted by 2100 will affect 10
percent of Vietnam’s population (which now stands at 86 million)
and 10 percent of GDP lost. Read the rest of this entry →