News headlines in June 2017, page 4

GENEVA, Jun 20 (IPS) - The world is heading into troubled waters as we are witnessing an unprecedented movement of people – refugees, migrants and internally displaced persons (IDPs) alike – fleeing from misery, poverty and conflicts. The refugee crisis that has swept across Europe and the Middle East is becoming the 21st century's most protracted crisis with no immediate solution in sight. The world has not witnessed a more complex movement of people since the end of the Second World War; thousands of human beings undertake perilous and treacherous journeys in hope for a better and a safer future. Many of them perish during these hazardous journeys. How can we forget the words the British-Somali poet Warsan Shire who said:

ROME/GENEVA, Jun 20 (IPS) - Nearly 66 million people were forcibly displaced from their homes last year, the United Nation refugee agency has reported.

ROME/BANGKOK, Jun 20 (IPS) - Rice is a major food commodity and staple food for many, and adding fish to flooded rice paddies has been a farming tradition practiced in a number of Asian countries for many centuries—even for more than 1000 years in some Chinese areas, the United Nations reports.

UNITED NATIONS, Jun 19 (IPS) - As UN staffers in Geneva threaten a strike, protesting a proposed salary cut of over 7.5 percent, a token two-hour "work stoppage" last week forced the Human Rights Council to suspend its meeting.

NAIROBI, Kenya, Jun 19 (IPS) - Every year, one million Kenyans are driven below the poverty line by healthcare-related expenditures. Poverty predisposes them to disease and slows all aspects of growth in the economy.

ROME/OUAGADOUGOU, Jun 19 (IPS) - Ignoring the plight of jobless young people in sub-Saharan Africa is a recipe for political instability and global insecurity, warned a high-level symposium of Africa's interior, environment and foreign affairs ministers in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.

ABUJA, Nigeria, Jun 19 (IPS) - A genetic resource centre run by the Nigeria-based International Institute for Tropical Agriculture has banked thousands of crop varieties for disaster relief and research, holds the world's largest and most diverse collection of cowpeas, and contains some of Africa's rarest insect species.

BUENOS AIRES, Jun 17 (IPS) - In Latin America and the Caribbean, which account for 12 per cent of the planet's arable land, and one-third of its fresh water reserves, a number of factors contribute to soil degradation and to a rural exodus that compromises food security in a not-so-unlikely future.

OUAGADOUGOU, Jun 16 (IPS) - The 23^rd World Day to Combat Desertification was celebrated in Burkina Faso's capital of Ouagadougou on June 15 with a call to create two million jobs and restore 10 million hectares of degraded land.

UNITED NATIONS, Jun 16 (IPS) - Prolonged conflicts in the Middle East have led to a deadly humanitarian crisis, with as many as 17.5 million people displaced in Syria, Iraq and Yemen.