News headlines in 2015, page 77

PARIS/OAKLAND, California, May 11 (IPS) - In our work at Greenpeace and the Oakland Institute around access and control over natural resources, we face constant accusations of being anti-development or "Northern NGOs who care more for the trees", despite working with communities around the world, from Cameroon, to China, to the Czech Republic.

NEW DELHI, May 10 (IPS) - In the following months, reports of the use of chemical weapons by Syrian forces multiplied. The most serious was an allegation that the Syrian army had used sarin gas on Mar. 19, 2013 at Khan al Assal, north of Aleppo, and in a suburb of Damascus against its opponents. This was followed by two more allegations of small attacks in April.

NEW DELHI, May 10 (IPS) - President Barack Obama's Nowroz greeting to the Iranian people earlier this year was the first clear indication to the world that the United States and Iran were very close to agreement on the contents of the nuclear agreement they had been working towards for the previous 16 months.

FORT-DE-FRANCE, Martinique, May 09 (IPS) - Caribbean leaders on Saturday further advanced their policy position on climate change ahead of the 21^st Conference of Parties, also known as COP 21, scheduled for Paris during November and December of this year.

BONN, May 09 (IPS) - Climate change is one of the greatest risks to human societies, but also to biodiversity, often creating a "snowball effect" exacerbating existing pressures such as habitat fragmentation.

PARIS, May 09 (IPS) - Long before the attack in Paris that inspired the slogan "Je Suis Charlie", a young French publisher has released a collection of stories titled je suis favela about life in Brazilian slums.

BRUSSELS, May 09 (IPS) - Last week, the European Union reached a momentous decision to finally agree a reform to its disastrous biofuels legislation, signalling Europe's U-turn on the burning of crops for biofuels.

BUENOS AIRES, May 08 (IPS) - Although they do not specifically target women, social policies like family allowances and pensions have improved the lives of women in Latin America, the region that has made the biggest strides so far this century in terms of gender equality, although there is still a long way to go.

UNITED NATIONS, May 08 (IPS) - Despite a minimal reduction in global production, the world food import bill is about to reach a five-year low in 2015, pushing international prices for agricultural commodities down even further, the Rome-based U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) forecast on May 7.

HARARE, May 08 (IPS) - While many countries appear to have met the U.N. Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of halving the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water, rights activists say that African countries which have taken to installing prepaid water meters have rendered a blow to many poor people, making it hard for them to access water.