IPS 28 March

	Subsidies Play “Significant Role” in Climate Change, IMF Says  Carey L. Biron  The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is urging national governments around the world to roll back or eliminate subsidies on petroleum-based energy sources, estimating that this alone could result in a 13-percent decline in global carbon dioxide emissions. In an unusual new paper marking its ...MORE > >
	Obesity and Hypertension - Signs of Inequality in Chile  Marianela Jarroud  The prevalence of obesity and hypertension among the poor in Chile is a factor that aggravates inequality, requiring public policies for prevention and mitigation of the high cost of a healthy diet. The most recent national health survey, carried out in 2012, found that 8.9 million people in ... MORE > >
	Small Miners - from Digging in Danger to Becoming Legal  Issa Sikiti da Silva  Congolese small-scale miner Elizabeth Tshimanga has made a successful living from prospecting. But like many artisanal miners in Africa, hers has been a long and tough journey marred by harassment and disputes over her legal status as a miner. The 50-year-old started working in Kasai region in ...MORE > >
	Group Warns of “Natural Resources Giveaway” in Latin America  Joe Hitchon  Researchers have unveiled new data warning that governments in Latin America are infringing on the rights of their indigenous populations in a bid to fuel development through the extraction of natural resources. The Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI), a Washington-based organisation, says it ...MORE > >
	PERU: Stepping Up Protection for Native Groups in Voluntary Isolation  Milagros Salazar  In the dense Amazon rainforest of Peru, there are five reserves inhabited by indigenous groups who have chosen to remain totally or partially isolated from the rest of society. But these areas are not officially demarcated as indigenous lands, and only one is protected with a control post. The ...MORE > >
	Naming Femicide to Fight Violence Against Women in Ecuador  Ángela Meléndez  Ecuador hopes to move forward in the fight against violence against women by typifying femicide – gender-motivated killings – as a specific crime in the new penal code. The first statistics on gender violence in this South American country were presented in 2012, indicating that 60 percent of ...MORE > >
	OP-ED: The BRICS and the Rising South  Helen Clark  On Tuesday, leaders of five large emerging economies – Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, known as the BRICS – will gather in Durban, South Africa to discuss harnessing their formidable resources on behalf of faster development progress in Africa and elsewhere. UNDP ... MORE > >
	Pope Francis Raises Hopes for an Ecological Church  Marcela Valente  The new pope’s choice of the name Francis, to honour the Catholic Church’s patron saint of animals and the environment, has awakened the hopes of ecologists and others who are concerned about rampant consumerism and the deterioration of the planet. In 1979, then Pope John Paul II proclaimed St. ... MORE > >
USAID Makes Steady but Slow Gains on Transparency  Katelyn Fossett  The United States’ main foreign assistance agency is getting widespread plaudits for new data on a series of internal reforms aimed at aid improvement, but some development experts are pointing to a persistent opaqueness from the agency. In a first-of-its-kind report released this week, the U.S. ... MORE > >
	Portuguese Women Stand Up for the Family in Times of Crisis  Mario Queiroz  The huge impact of the economic crisis on male employment in Portugal has led to a sharp increase in the proportion of women who have become the main breadwinners in their families. But that has not translated into progress towards equality. “Today there is more male unemployment than female, ...MORE > >
	Water Crisis Hitting Food, Energy – And Everything Else  Stephen Leahy  How much water does it take to turn on a light? It took 10,000 litres to make your jeans. Another three big bathtubs of water was needed for your two-eggs-toast-coffee breakfast this morning. Piped water has made life easier for this Laotian boy, who no longer has to help his parents fetch ... MORE > >
	World Bank 2030 Draft Strategy Criticised for Omitting Inequality  Carey L. Biron  A leaked copy of a major World Bank strategy paper, outlining a new institutional approach to tackling poverty through 2030, has worried some humanitarian groups and anti-poverty advocates, who say the bank has failed to suggest mechanisms that would allow it to adequately track or deal with ... MORE > >
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