IPS: week of April 12

2013/4/12	Click here for the online version of this IPS newsletter
	Women Miners Blast Through Barriers in Chile  Marianela Jarroud  Women are playing an increasingly important role in Chile’s mining industry, where little more than a decade ago they were not even allowed in the mines because of prejudice and superstitions. Today a total of 18,000 women work in mining equivalent to 7.2 percent of the industry’s workforce. ... MORE > >
	Oil Flows Beneath the Battlefield  Karlos Zurutuza  At seven o’clock in the morning on Mar. 1, Kurdish militias took over the only operational oil refinery in Syria, located about 800 kilometres northwest of Damascus. “They told us to go home, and to wait for two days until everything was settled,” recalled Mahmud Hassan, one of 3,000 workers at ... MORE > >
	Far from Home, Malian Refugees Strive to Rebuild Their Lives  Issa Sikiti da Silva  Malian widow Mariama Sow, 30, and her three children are trying to find some semblance of normalcy in their lives in Dakar, Senegal, since they left the historic city of Timbuktu in northern Mali last June to escape the Islamist occupation. Sow and her children are now living in relative safety ... MORE > >
	Uruguay – Second Country in Latin America to Adopt Gay Marriage  Raúl Pierri  Activists in Uruguay hope the passage of the “Equal Marriage Law” Wednesday will help bring about recognition that society is heterogeneous. The law approved by the Uruguayan Congress modifies the civil code and recognises the marriage of two people of any gender identity or sexual ... MORE > >
EU Calls for New Plans Past the MDGs  Pavol Stracansky  The European Commission has unveiled a blueprint for global development aid and called on world leaders to replace the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) with an international aid framework based on sustainable and inclusive development tackling poverty at its roots. While praising how the UN’s ... MORE > >
	Militarised Island Seeks Makeover  Suvendrini Kakuchi  The island of Okinawa has long been known as the base camp for a majority of the United States’ 50,000 troops in Japan. But now, against the backdrop of escalating nuclear threats from North Korea, local leaders are pushing hard to promote this island – the largest of 60 that comprise Japan’s ... MORE > >
	U.S. Global Health Cuts Threaten Gains on Lethal Diseases  Katelyn Fossett  A U.S.-based civil society coalition is calling on Congress and President Barack Obama’s administration to keep spending on global health aid at current levels, warning that recent budget cuts risk a dangerous backslide in health and development gains achieved over the past three decades. The ... MORE > >
	OP-ED: Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood and Democracy: A Sputtering Start Emile Nakhleh  The governing programme of Egyptian President Muhammad Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood has been disappointing. His commitment to genuine democracy has been faltering, and his efforts at inclusion and political tolerance have been wanting. Morsi’s actions against the Egyptian comedian Basim ... MORE > >
	Daring Woman Enters the Contest  Ashfaq Yusufzai  “My sole motive is to serve my people, especially women who have had no role in politics so far. I feel we can make progress only by bringing in women into mainstream politics.” These are the words of Badam Zari, 40, who has filed her nomination papers with the Election Commission of Pakistan ... MORE > >
	The Other Side of the Coin in Spain  Inés Benítez  Wholemeal rye bread, lettuce and chard are some of the products on offer from the El Caminito urban vegetable garden at the small organic produce market in this southern Spanish city, with prices set in "comunes", one of more than 30 social currencies circulating in the country. "The aim is to ... MORE > >
	Free Ticket to 'Apartheid'  Mel Frykberg  “At least we are not treated like dogs and made to feel so uncomfortable,” Amjad Samara, 30, a labourer from Nablus in the northern West Bank told IPS as he and a group of Palestinians waited at the checkpoint near Qalqilia to cross into Israel for their day job. Samara was referring to the new ... MORE > >
	Troops May Join Mexico’s Fight Against Hunger  Emilio Godoy  The Mexican government is considering using the armed forces, which face serious human rights accusations from their involvement in the war on drugs, to collect socioeconomic data from the low-income households that will benefit from the National Crusade Against Hunger. Government sources told ... MORE > >
	Incomplete Justice in Killings of Amazon Activists  Fabiola Ortiz  Peasants and human rights defenders in Brazil are indignant over the acquittal of the man accused of ordering the May 2011 murders of two prominent Amazon activists, José Cláudio Ribeiro da Silva and his wife Maria do Espírito Santo. The trial ended Thursday Apr. 4 with the sentencing of two men ... MORE > >
Q&A: A Healthy Verdict from India  Gustavo Capdevila  India’s refusal to grant patent protection for the anti-cancer drug Glivec, developed by Swiss drugmaker Novartis, is a victory for the developing world, which depends on low-cost exports of generic medicines from the Asian giant, said public health specialist Germán Velásquez. The triumph ... MORE > >
	Women Take the Stage Against Taliban  Ashfaq Yusufzai  The Taliban may have placed a ban on theatre, but women in Pakistan’s northern provinces won’t allow the threat of the militants’ reprisals to keep them off the stage. Meena Gul, a 32-year-old who made her debut in the recent production of Khushal Khan Khattak, a play based on the life of the ... MORE > >
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