IDEALS

HO CHI MINH CITY, (Aug. 21, 2009) IPS/GIN – Vietnam is something
of a regional leader when it comes to gender equality. There are
laws against domestic violence and discrimination, and very high
female literacy.

Yet its sex ratio is skewed. For every 100 girls born, there are
112 boys. People prefer sons. Read the rest of this entry →

UXBRIDGE, Canada, (Apr. 29, 2010) IPS/GIN – The war on drugs is a
complete failure everywhere, according a comprehensive review of
20 years of scientific literature released at the Harm Reduction
2010 conference in Liverpool, England that wraps up Thursday.

“The war on drugs does not work, period,” said Dr. Julio Montaner,
president of the International AIDS Society. Read the rest of this entry →

QUITO, (May 6, 2010) IPS/GIN – Indigenous organizations in Ecuador
opposed to a water reform bill that they say would give mining
companies and agribusiness privileged access to water have
threatened to extend their protests around the country in order to
keep the legislature from passing the bill without certain
modifications.

This week, native demonstrators blocked traffic on highways in
three provinces and surrounded Congress on Tuesday as legislators
were debating the bill on the regulation of water use, which is
sponsored by the government of centre-left President Rafael Correa. Read the rest of this entry →

UNITED NATIONS, (Apr. 8, 2010) IPS/GIN – Sixteen years after the
genocide in Rwanda, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon vowed that
the international community would never again sit by while mass
atrocities are committed against innocent civilians.

“Together, let us pledge our determination to prevent genocide as
the best way to remember those who lost their lives so tragically
in Rwanda,” he said as the United Nation observed a global day of
remembrance for the tragedy Tuesday.

On Apr. 6, 1994, the presidential guard, the army, police, and
prominent businessmen started calling for the death of Tutsis and
moderate Hutus in Rwanda. During a period of less than 100 days,
800,000 people were killed with machetes, guns, clubs, and pure
brute force. Read the rest of this entry →

TEL AVIV, (May 6, 2009) IPS/GIN – Beit Daniel is an Israeli
pluralist religious organization promoting coexistence between Jews
and Muslims in the Holy Land. Executive director Rabbi Meir Azari
speaks here to IPS about the war in Gaza, the importance of
compromise, and the moral dilemmas of Israel.

Rabbi Meir Azari is the face of progressive Judaism in Israel,
promoting not only the Jewish faith, but the importance of
coexistence within Israel. As director of the Beit Daniel
synagogue, he seeks to disperse this message through educational
activities. On any given week, up to 2,500 children, senior
citizens, students and others visit the community centre. Thirty
schools and 15 Tel Aviv pre-schools collaborate with the education
department of Beit Daniel. Read the rest of this entry →

CAIRO, (May 30, 2009) IPS/GIN – As night falls over Egypt’s
capital, youth gather along the banks of the Nile where a
carnivalesque atmosphere prevails.

Tamer and Mido have taken up positions on the railing next to the
river. As a group of veiled teenage girls approaches, the duo works
in tandem. Tamer removes the girls’ headscarves with his eyes,
while sensually nuanced words roll off Mido’s tongue.

“Girls love the attention – it makes them feel attractive,” said
Mido, an engineering student, as the girls diverted their eyes to
the pavement and nervously scurried past. “They pretend to be
innocent, but it’s just part of the game they play.” Read the rest of this entry →

FREETOWN , (Mar. 25, 2010) IPS/GIN – Former child soldier Komba
Gbondo maimed and killed many people from his hometown, and the
25-year-old is still too terrified to return.

Gbondo was 13 when Revolutionary United Front (RUF) fighters
invaded his home town of Tombodu, in the eastern district of Kono
and forcefully recruited and conscripted dozens of able-bodied men
and boys, into their ranks.

For four years Gbondo was part of what was known as the “Small Boys
Unit” – a death squad of underage boys who terrorized and killed
civilians, including many people from his village. Read the rest of this entry →

PARIS, (Mar. 25, 2010) IPS/GIN – As international donors prepare
to meet at the United Nations headquarters in New York to discuss
ways to rebuild Haiti after the devastating Jan. 12 earthquake, the
country’s artistic community has been mobilizing to make culture
a key aspect of reconstruction.

Led by Haiti’s minister for culture and communication,
Marie-Laurence Jocelyn-Lassägue, writers, artists and musicians
gathered in Paris this week at the U.N.’s cultural agency, UNESCO,
to map out medium- and long-term strategies for “recreating” the
Caribbean nation. Read the rest of this entry →

LONDON, (Mar. 25, 2010) IPS/GIN – The International Monetary Fund
(IMF) has published the first details of a proposed financing
framework, dubbed the ‘Green Fund’, intended to mobilize 100
billion dollars a year by 2020 to help developing countries cope
with the consequences of climate change and mitigate further
emissions.

Outlined in a staff paper by IMF economists Hugh Bredenkamp and
Catherine Pattillo, the Green Fund could launch from a capital
injection by developed countries, in the form of Special Drawing
Rights (SDRs), a currency issued by the IMF to member countries.

The facility would eventually combine resources from investors,
raised through ‘green bonds’ in global capital markets, with
developed country subsidies. Contributors could scale their equity
stakes in proportion to their IMF quota share. Read the rest of this entry →

CAIRO, (Jul. 14, 2009) IPS/GIN – A year ago Monday, French
President Nicolas Sarkozy launched the Union for the Mediterranean,
or Euromed, a grouping of European Union nations plus 16 non- EU
Mediterranean states. Since then, critics say, the initiative has
made little tangible progress.

“The Euromed initiative has been stillborn from the outset,” Hassan
Nafaa, political science professor at Cairo University told IPS.
“In terms of its chief objectives, it has made very little headway
up until this point.”

The Euromed project was formally launched in Paris on July 13 last
year. The inaugural brought together heads of state from the 27
nations of the EU and 16 countries of the Middle East, North Africa
and the West Balkans. Participants from the Middle East and North
Africa included Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Israel, Lebanon, Turkey,
Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Mauritania and the Ramallah-based
Palestinian Authority. Read the rest of this entry →