IDEALS

WASHINGTON, (Jun. 3, 2010) IPS/GIN – Some CIA officers involved in
the agency’s drone strikes program in Pakistan and elsewhere are
privately expressing their opposition to the program within the
agency, because it is helping al Qaeda and its allies recruit,
according to a retired military officer in contact with them.

“Some of the CIA operators are concerned that, because of its
blowback effect, it is doing more harm than good,” said Jeffrey
Addicott, former legal adviser to U.S. Special Forces and director
of the Centre for Terrorism Law at St Mary’s University in San
Antonio, Texas, in an interview with IPS.
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STOCKHOLM, (Aug. 20, 2009) IPS/GIN – A longstanding quote
attributed, rightly or wrongly, to the legendary author and
humourist Mark Twain has been reverberating in the conference rooms
of the Swedish capital: “Whisky is for drinking, water is for
fighting over.”

Since nearly half of the global available surface water is found
in 263 international river basins, the countries sharing borders
have one of two choices: either collaborate or go to war.

A primary focus at the international water conference, currently
underway in Stockholm, is transboundary water management. Read the rest of this entry →

KANO, Nigeria, (Aug. 20, 2009) IPS/GIN – Hajiya Altine Abdullahi
was planning a million-strong march of widows and orphans through
the streets of the northern Nigerian city of Kano.

But then she was called in to a meeting with the powerful body
tasked with monitoring compliance with Islamic law in Kano state,
the Hisbah command.

“I have promised to desist from talking about the cancelled rally
after the arguments of the Hisbah command helped me see the damage
it would do to the community,” Abdullahi told IPS.

Abdullahi is the executive director of Voice of Widows, DivorcÇe
and Orphans of Nigeria (VOWAN), a non-governmental organisation set
up five years ago to address the problems faced by widows and
divorced women in Kano State. It has since become a national group
claiming about 17,000 members. Read the rest of this entry →

TRINCOMALEE, Sri Lanka, (May 25, 2010) IPS/GIN – Rajini Padamaraj,
32 and single, is the sole support of her mother and two younger
siblings.

Rajini, of Tamil ethnic origin, is originally from the Jaffna
peninsula in northern Sri Lanka. She found a job last October as
a sewing instructor in a training centre for women funded by a
Japanese women’s group.

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PUNTA DEL ESTE, Uruguay, (May 26, 2010) IPS/GIN – “There should be
a mechanism for recipient countries to help bring about a more
balanced distribution of GEF funds,” Cuban delegate Jorge Luis
Fern†ndez told IPS after a forum Tuesday on how to boost the
efficiency and effectiveness of the Global Environment Facility.

Fernandez and other representatives of Latin American governments
taking part in the Fourth GEF Assembly Monday through Friday in the
Uruguayan resort town of Punta del Este on the Atlantic coast
called for a greater voice in the GEF’s decision-making bodies.

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MANAUS, Brazil, (May 26, 2010) IPS/GIN – The 74 pillars that will
hold up the bridge over the Negro river to join this major city in
Brazil’s Amazon jungle to nearby urban districts have mostly been
laid, without environmental protests or major debates on the impact
of a fast-growing metropolitan area in the heart of the Amazon
rainforest.

The 3,595-metre long bridge is a symbol of the triumph of the
automobile over river transport in an area where rivers have
historically been the only highways.

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With only five years left to
meet the Millennium Development Goals’ 2015 deadline for reducing
child mortality, progress toward that goal may be coming faster
than was previously thought.

Past studies have indicated many countries are not moving quickly
enough toward the goal of a two-thirds reduction in deaths of
children under five years old, but a new study sees an acceleration
of this reduction in several low-income countries.

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Civil society
organizations called for more funds, less bureaucracy and greater
decision-making power, at the opening of the Fourth Global
Environment Facility (GEF) Assembly Monday in this Uruguayan resort
town.

Although they expressed appreciation for support received from the
global fund, especially through the Small Grants Programme,
representatives of the GEF NGO Network — a partnership with more
than 400 GEF-accredited non-governmental organizations worldwide
– participating in the five-day meeting in Punta del Este
criticized the excessive bureaucracy bogging down the process of
applying for project funds and the lack of cultural sensitivity
towards indigenous communities.

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UNITED NATIONS, (Apr. 29, 2010) IPS/GIN – While aboriginal peoples
represent approximately five percent of the world’s population,
they are 10 percent of the world’s poor, according to a new World
Bank report on “Indigenous Peoples, Poverty and Development”.

The study focused on seven countries in depth, and took a more
cursory look at 30 others where data was less complete. It examines
some of the root causes of the disproportionate number of
indigenous peoples living in poverty, citing geographic
disadvantages, insufficient investment in human capital, access to
resources, and discrimination. Read the rest of this entry →

LIMA, (May 2, 2010) IPS/GIN – The Olmos mega project, which will
divert water from the Huancabamba River through a trans-Andean
tunnel to a desert area along Peru’s northern coast, is being
touted as a catalyst for development, but disputes are heating up
over land, crops and water.

The goal of moving water from the Atlantic side of the continental
divide to the Pacific side for the Olmos hydroelectric and
irrigation plan in the northwestern region of Lamayeque has been
a dream for the past 80 years – a seemingly endless story fits and
starts. Read the rest of this entry →