HARARE, Jun 10 (IPS) - "Ndipei sand dzangu," (give me my hammers) sings Zimbabwean artist Winky D. He may be singing in Shona, the local language spoken by some 80 percent of Zimbabweans, but his Shona is different. It's Street Shona. So what he really means, loosely translated, is that someone is exceptionally good at what they do and therefore needs to be recognised for this.

LIMA, Jun 10 (IPS) - Peru urgently needs a national plan for the management of water over the next two decades, one that will take into account the effects of climate change and the social and environmental conflicts triggered by problems over water.

PORT LOUIS, Jun 10 (IPS) - While Mauritius has been forced to transform its sugar industry because of low prices for the commodity, the country's small-scale sugarcane farmers who contribute to it say they are barely earning a living.

WASHINGTON, Jun 09 (IPS) - Major donor countries will unveil next week a new initiative aimed at strengthening the ability of developing countries' governments to negotiate complex contracts, particularly around the extractives sector.

UNITED NATIONS, Jun 09 (IPS) - At the end of this week leaders of the Group of 77 and China will meet in Bolivia to commemorate the 50^th anniversary of the group.

MEXICO CITY, Jun 09 (IPS) - Latin America's parliaments have failed to protect the forests and to guarantee their sustainable use, despite the fact that a number of countries have laws on forests, legislators from the region said at a global summit in the Mexican capital.

NEW YORK, Jun 09 (IPS) - Six years after the financial crisis, Wall Street's housing alchemy engine is revving up again - only this time it's coming for your rental.

BEASAIN, Spain, Jun 09 (IPS) - "Around 150,000 showed up to claim that we, Basques, want to decide the future of this country," Urtzi Urrutikoetxea, journalist, writer and member of the Basque people's organisation Gure Esku Dago (GED), told IPS after on the 123-kilometre long human chain "for the right to decide" organised Sunday.

SYDNEY, Jun 09 (IPS) - Since the French overseas territory of New Caledonia in the South Pacific was reinstated on the United Nations Decolonisation List in 1986, the indigenous Kanak people have struggled not only against socio-economic disadvantages, but also for the right to determine their political future after more than a century of colonialism.

UNITED NATIONS, Jun 09 (IPS) - How much does a forest cost? What's the true economic value of an ocean? Can you pay for an alpine forest or a glacial meadow? And – more importantly – will such calculus save the planet, or subordinate a rapidly collapsing natural world to market forces?