News headlines in July 2016

CAPETOWN, Jul 30 (IPS) - Almost half a decade of drought across most of South Africa has led to small towns in crisis and food imports for the first time in over 20 years, as well as severely hampering the government's planned land redistribution programme.

UNITED NATIONS, Jul 29 (IPS) - The President of the 70th Session of the UN General Assembly, Mogens Lykketoft, has helped spearhead a push for a more open and transparent selection process for the next UN Secretary-General.

GENEVA, Jul 29 (IPS) - On 1 July 2016, the Human Rights Council (HRC) of the United Nations in Geneva adopted a Declaration on the Right to Peace by a majority of its Member States. It is the result of three years of work with all stakeholders led by Costa Rica, through its Ambassador Christian Guillermet-Fernández.

HAVANA, Jul 29 (IPS) - The novel inclusion of a gender perspective in the talks that led to a historic peace deal between the Colombian government and left-wing guerrillas is a landmark and an inspiration for efforts to solve other armed conflicts in the world, according to the director of U.N.-Women in Colombia, Belén Sanz.

NEW DELHI, Jul 28 (IPS) - In a fraught global economic environment, exacerbated by climate change and shrinking resources, ensuring food and nutrition security is a daunting challenge for many nations. India, Asia's third largest economy and the world's second most populous nation after China with 1.3 billion people, is no exception.

MORENO, Argentina, Jul 28 (IPS) - Now that the wind no longer blows her roof off and her house belongs to her, Cristina López feels safe in the shantytown where she lives on the outskirts of the Argentine capital. But she and her neighbours still need to win respect for many more rights they have been denied.

NEW YORK, Jul 28 (IPS) - The UN Joint Staff Pension Fund (UNJSPF), whose current assets are estimated at over $54.2 billion, has no plans to "privatize" and is in "solid" financial health, according to Carolyn Boykin, Representative of the Secretary-General (RSG) and head of the Fund's Investment Management Division.

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Jul 28 (IPS) - A US government agency acknowledges that the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) will not deliver many economic benefits promised by its cheerleaders. The 2016 report by the United States International Trade Commission (ITC) acknowledges that the TPP will not deliver many gains claimed by the US Trade Representative (USTR) and the Peterson Institute of International Economics (PIIE) although it uses similar methodology and assumes that the TPP will not change the US trade deficit as a share of GDP.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jul 27 (IPS) - The biggest frustration at the Olympic Games, to be inaugurated in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro on August 5, is the failure to meet environmental sanitation targets and promises in the city's beaches, rivers, lakes and lagoons.

DAYLESFORD, Australia, Jul 27 (IPS) - Two of the drivers of world affairs that manifest in the daily decisions that affect our lives are ideology and religion.