IPS Picks, May 23 2013

	OP-ED: A Global Goal on Gender Equality, Women’s Rights and Women’s Empowerment  Lakshmi Puri  Hardly a day goes by without a news story on some violation of women’s rights. In recent months, appalling incidents of violence against women and girls, from Delhi to Johannesburg to Cleveland, have sparked public outrage and demands to tackle these horrific abuses. Lakshmi Puri. UN ... MORE > >
	Water Debt and Leaks Plague City Residents  Brendon Bosworth  Nokuzola Bulana has a problem with leaks. The water that drips from the pipes of the toilet outside her home in Khayelitsha, a large semi-informal township on the fringes of Cape Town, South Africa goes to waste and drives up her water bill. Bulana, a water activist, says she fixed the leaks in ...MORE > >
	Remittances Buoy Up Myanmar’s Economy  Simba Shani Kamaria Russeau  Nangnyi Foung reaches into the dryer, pulls out another pair of pants and places it on the ironing board. "I still have several more loads to go," she says as the clock strikes nine p.m., marking the start of her 14th hour on the shift. She has been on her feet in this laundromat in the northern ... MORE > >
	Insects, from Delicacy to Tool against Hunger  Emilio Godoy  The Food and Agriculture Organisation's recommendation to consider using edible insects as a food source to combat hunger may have particular repercussions in Colombia and Mexico, two Latin American countries that have a tradition of eating insects and a high degree of biodiversity. Mexico has ... MORE > >
	New Effort Targets the Leading Killers of Children  Lucy Westcott  PATH, a Seattle-based global health development organisation, is aiming to save two million lives by 2015 by jointly tackling diarrhea and pneumonia, the leading killers of children globally. Steve Davis, president and CEO of PATH, delivered the message at the ninth annual PATH Breakfast for ... MORE > >
	Cuban Agriculture Needs Young People  Patricia Grogg  When Gabriela Blanco tells other Cubans that she works in an organic vegetable cooperative and is getting ready to study agronomy at the university, she gets surprised looks. She is not sure where her vocation came from, but she does know that this is what she wants to do. In Cuba, which is ... MORE > >
	Fresh Water “More Precious Than Gold” in Bangladesh  Naimul Haq  Fahima Begum rises each morning at dawn and walks two kilometres to a small pond, the nearest source of fresh water. On her way she passes the rusty old hand-pumped tube well that used to supply water to her village in Bangladesh’s arid Barind region until the water table here dropped out of ...MORE > >
	Q&A: AIDS-Free Future Means Fighting Homophobia  Mathieu Vaas  The global fight against HIV/AIDS has seen recent hard-won breakthroughs, including the discovery of the genetic hiding place of the virus by doctors in Australia, a 50-percent drop in new infections across 25 low- and middle-income countries, and an increase of 63 percent in the number of people ...MORE > >
	Growing Peas and Greens to Maximise Water Usage  Miriam Gathigah  Amid warnings that Kenya’s agricultural water use is surpassing sustainable levels and adversely affecting food security, biodiversity researchers say that agrobiodiversity should be considered as a vital tool to combat this. “In order to feed the nation, the country must explore ... MORE > >
	Stressed Ecosystems Leaving Humanity High and Dry  Stephen Leahy  Everyone knows water is life. Far too few understand the role of trees, plants and other living things in ensuring we have clean, fresh water. This dangerous ignorance results in destruction of wetlands that once cleaned water and prevented destructive and costly flooding, scientists and ... MORE > >
	Organic Cooperative Proves that Agriculture Can Prosper in Cuba  Ivet González  “The people are the only thing that matters,” says agronomist Miguel Ángel Salcines, who then goes on to list a series of other “secondary” factors that have turned Vivero Alamar, an urban farm on the outskirts of the Cuban capital, into a rare success story in the country’s depressed agricultural ...MORE > >
	Indigenous Brazilians Learn to Fight for the Right to Food  Clarinha Glock  Indigenous communities in remote areas of Brazil have begun to recognise that they have the right to not be hungry, and are learning that food security means much more than simply having food on the table. Rosiléia Cruz, 19, dreams of studying journalism. She chooses her words carefully during ...MORE > >
	UNFPA Focuses on Contraception for 222 Million in Developing World  Thalif Deen  When thousands of participants from around the world gather in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur next week, the primary focus will be on health and empowerment of girls and women. The meeting, scheduled for May 26-30 under a banner titled Women Deliver, will zero in on a longstanding ... MORE > >
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