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By Sehar Naz Janani
NARYN, Kyrgyzstan (IDN) – His pale skin, teary eyes, shivering body and trembling voice added to the air of grave solemnity pervading the room.
Breaking the dead silence, his mouth slowly started murmuring, “I am an orphan… But, I have a sister… She beats me every now and then” and added, “She also abuses me emotionally. I could not take it anymore.
By Kalinga Seneviratne
This article is the 37th in a series of joint productions of Lotus News Features and IDN-InDepthNews, flagship of the International Press Syndicate. Click here for previous articles.
BANGKOK (IDN) – On a Saturday morning a couple drives into the Santi Asoke community in the north-eastern outskirts of Bangkok, and walks into a large warehouse stacked with clothes, shoes, books, electrical goods, mobile phones, washing machines, furniture and other household items. The couple inspects a stack of clothes scattered on a mat, picks some up and puts it in a basket. It is then taken to a volunteer cashier, who weighs it and quotes a price.
By Kwame Buist
ROME (IDN) – Almost daily violent attacks in the Sahel nations of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger have displaced nearly one million people and caused emergency levels of malnutrition, the World Food Programme (WFP) has warned.
“Conflict is moving forward and moving fast,” says Margot van der Velden, Director of WFP’s Emergencies Division, referring to the three countries, where it is estimated 20 million people are living in areas affected by conflict and 2.4 million people are in need of food assistance – a figure that could rise due to continued displacements.
By Emil Fulajtar and Joanne Liou*
VIENNA (IDN) – Harmless traces from nuclear testing more than half a century ago are helping researchers assess soil erosion rates. In Africa, about 65 percent of the continent's farmland is affected by erosion-induced losses of topsoil and soil nutrients, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Benin is among those countries severely impacted by soil erosion, which poses a major problem for economic development since agriculture represents approximately 35 percent of the country’s GDP and 80 percent of its export income. A recent study applied a nuclear technique to assess rates of soil erosion and support land conservation in Benin.
By Reinhard Jacobsen
BRUSSELS (IDN) –The ACP Secretariat joined with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations to observe the World Food Day 2019 with the aim to step up actions to end hunger and malnutrition in all its forms possible by 2030.
By Jaya Ramachandran
ROME (IDN | ACP) – European Commissioner for International Cooperation and Development, Neven Mimica, and Director-General of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, Qu Dongyu, signed on October 14 a new agreement enabling the EU to provide an additional €9 million to support the UN agency's work in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific.
The funding will boost in particular the efforts of countries in the targeted regions to bring about sustainable changes in agricultural policies and practices to conserve and sustainably use biodiversity and natural resources.
By Santo D. Banerjee
NEW YORK (IDN) – Since the first International Day of Rural Women was observed on October 15, 2008, there is agreement that rural women and girls, including indigenous women, play a critical role in enhancing agricultural and rural development, improving food security and eradicating rural poverty.
In fact when the UN General Assembly established the new international day in its resolution 62/136 of December 18, 2007, it called for “attaching greater importance to the improvement of the situation of rural women, including indigenous women, in their national, regional and global development strategies”.
By J Nastranis
NEW YORK (IDN) – Ahead of the World Food Day on October 16 and the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty on October 17, the United Nations Is warning that the world is not on track to end hunger and poverty by 2030 – and hence missing the deadline for achieving the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted in September 2015.
By Caroline Mwanga
NEW YORK IDN) – Eminent leaders from business, politics, media, the film and music industries gathered in New York on September 22 to spotlight the 8000 km Great Green Wall – natural wonder of the world across the entire width of the African continent – as a practical, low-cost nature-based solution responding to the global climate emergency. They issued an urgent call on governments, civil society and business to join a growing global movement to make the Great Green Wall a reality by 2030.
By Bronwen Evans *
CHANTHABURI, Thailand (IDN) – There are generally two reasons why Thai farmers embrace organics – one is health and the other is economics. For 73-year old Kumnung Chanthasit it was the latter. He had farmed the same plot of land in Thailand’s eastern province of Chanthaburi since boyhood. Despite the rich volcanic soil, he found himself sinking deeper and deeper into debt as he struggled to pay for the fertilisers and pesticides he thought he needed.
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