IPS Pick of the Week

	Ghana’s Growing Economy Fails to Create Jobs  Billie McTernan  Ghana’s economy registered 7.1 percent growth last year but 23-year-old Jennifer Esi Avemee has had difficulty securing a permanent job since graduating in 2011. “It's very stressful,” she laments. “It's very hard to sustain yourself.” Avemee studied public relations at the Ghanaian ... MORE > >
	Killers Roam Free in Nepal  Sudeshna Sarkar  When the police finally arrested a man this month in the Nepali capital for the murder of a teenager nine years ago, it became a matter of life and death for Nanda Prasad Adhikari and his wife Ganga Maya. The 18-year-old victim, abducted and killed brutally by Maoist guerrillas in 2004 when the ... MORE > >
	U.S. to Require Disclosure of Worker-to-CEO Pay Gap  Carey L. Biron  Regulators here are proposing that most U.S. corporations be required to provide annual public reporting on how the pay received by their chief executive compares to that of their average workers, a requirement proponents say could be a first step in reining in an unprecedented swelling in ... MORE > >
	Credit Rating Reform Overlooks Developing World  Samuel Oakford  The concerns of developing countries about credit rating agencies (CRAs) risk going unheard as regulatory bodies around the world tackle questions raised after the 2008 financial crisis. The Financial Stability Board (FSB) and the Basel III global accords, formed in the wake of the crisis, have ... MORE > >
	Nigerians Uncertain of Future in Bakassi Peninsula  Ngala Killian Chimtom  Thomas Effiom, a 35-year old fisher in Jabane, a small locality in Cameroon’s Bakassi Peninsula, scoops off floodwaters from the muddy floor of his house. It is a ritual he performs each time the Atlantic Ocean overflows. “It’s a huge problem here,” he tells IPS. Very often, floodwaters wash ... MORE > >
	Climate Change Threatens Crop Yields in Brazil  Fabiana Frayssinet  Crop yields in Brazil, an agricultural powerhouse, are set to decline as a result of climate change, according to the most complete diagnosis yet of climate trends in this country. Brazil is about to overtake the United States as the world’s top producer of soy, which could see yields fall 25 ... MORE > >
	Street Power Takes On Gold  Claudia Ciobanu  Street protests are snowballing in Romania against a Canadian-led gold mining project in the Rosia Montana area in the Apuseni Mountains. More than 20,000 people joined a protest march in Bucharest on Sunday, and thousands in other Romanian cities took to the streets. The Sunday marches ... MORE > >
	Executions on Hold ‘for the Wrong Reasons’  Ashfaq Yusufzai  The execution of three Taliban men ordered by the courts has been kept on hold - not because the Pakistani government opposes the death penalty but because it fears the Taliban, political leaders say. “Stoppage of executions by the government means that it has succumbed to Taliban pressure,” ... MORE > >
	Scarcity Reveals an Inaccessible Excess  Miriam Gathigah  For decades Zakayo Ekeno has walked Turkana County’s arid land, herding his livestock, and his father’s before that. Yet nothing about the persistently drought-stricken land in northern Kenya could have given him an indication of the wealth beneath it. “I have asked myself many times whether ... MORE > >
	OP-ED: Getting Children Into Somalia’s Classrooms  Maryan Qasim  Somalia is well-known for being a country torn apart by decades of conflict, by hunger and instability. Today, with fragile stability emerging and a new government in place, there is an opportunity to define a new future of peace, prosperity and justice. The capital city, Mogadishu, is ... MORE > >
	Politics Eats Into Palestinian Breadbasket  Jillian Kestler-D'Amours  In the Jordan Valley, contrasts are stark. Lush green agricultural fields and fenced-in greenhouses belong to the Israeli settlements that dot the landscape and benefit from the area’s abundant water supply on one hand. On the other, Palestinian farmers denied access to their lands and other ... MORE > >