IPS Pick of the week June 21 2013

2013/6/21	Click here for the online version of this IPS newsletter
	Salvadoran Military List of Victims a Smoking Gun  Edgardo Ayala  The Salvadoran army kept a detailed list of names and photographs of leftists detained or sought during El Salvador’s 1980-1992 civil war. The report is the first official military document proving the armed forces’ direct involvement in forced disappearances and other abuses. Activists told IPS ...MORE >>
	Straightening Out Accounts on Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon  Fabiana Frayssinet  The bold strategy implemented by the Brazilian government has achieved an 84 percent reduction in deforestation in the Amazon rainforest in the last eight years. But when the natural resources and pesticides used in agricultural production are taken into account, the environmental progress made is ... MORE >>
	Somalia’s ‘Cultural Shift’ Means Less-Severe Form of FGM  Abdurrahman Warsameh  Seven-year-old Istar Mumin lies on a bed, motionless, in one of the rooms of her family home in Mogadishu’s Hamarweyne district. She has just gone through the horrifying ritual of “the cut,” which was carried out by a local Somali nurse. “I am in pain. I cannot move. They cut me,” a teary-eyed ...MORE >>
	Resurgence of Indigenous Identity in the Crossfire in Brazil  Mario Osava  The powerful tractors and other farm machinery that landowners recently used to block roads at a dozen points from north to south in Brazil illustrated the economic clout of big agriculture, which rose up against the demarcation of indigenous reserves. The presence of lawmakers in the protests ...MORE >>
	Reconstruction of Haiti Slum to Cost Hundreds of Millions of Dollars  Correspondents  Three years after its star-studded launch by President René Préval, actor Sean Penn and other Haitian and foreign dignitaries, the model “Corail-Cesselesse” camp for Haiti's 2010 earthquake victims has helped give birth to what might become the country's most expansive – and most expensive – ... MORE >>
	Leasehold Forestry Brings a New Lease on Life  Naresh Newar  Nearly 300 km from Nepal’s teeming capital, Kathmandu, in a small village dug into the steep slopes of the mountainous Palpa district, 35-year-old Dhanmaya Pata goes about her daily chores in much the same way that her ancestors did centuries ago. Pata and the roughly 200 other residents in the ... MORE >>
	The Taliban Torches a Lifeline  Ashfaq Yusufzai  The United States is laying meticulous plans ahead of its 2014 withdrawal from Afghanistan, but it has clearly overlooked how its continued drones strikes on the tribal areas of neighbouring Pakistan will affect the much-anticipated pullout. Last week, a group of militants belonging to the ...MORE >>
	Stealing Gas from the Poor to Power the Rich  Thembi Mutch  In Kilwa District in southern Tanzania local community leader and fisherman Salim Riziki stands next to a set of turbines, newly imported from Dubai, talking about the gas finds on Songo Songo, an island 15 km off the mainland. The whirring sounds and lights from the turbines are in stark ...MORE >>
	No Quick Fixes to Sorcery-Related Violence  Catherine Wilson  Following worldwide outrage over a spate of brutal sorcery-related murders in Papua New Guinea, the government has rolled out a new hard-line approach to spiralling crime in this southwest Pacific island state. Repeal of the much-criticised 1971 Sorcery Act means that sorcery-related killings ...MORE >>