News headlines in December 2019, page 5

LONDON, Dec 10 (IPS) - This year's Human Rights Day advocates for everyone to stand up for their rights and those of others.

Yet this will feel like a distant reality for the millions of sanitation workers in developing countries who are forced to work in conditions that endanger their health and even their lives.

NEW YORK, Dec 10 (IPS) - Human rights advocates should be as concerned with the economic injustices giving rise to recent worldwide demonstrations as with the repressive responses to them. 

BERLIN and KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 10 (IPS) - China's gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 14%. Since then, its growth rate has declined by more than half to 6.6% in 2018. The five-year moving average growth rate is at its lowest since reforms began in 1978, although annual growth briefly fell lower during 1979, the year of the Tian An Men incident.

UNITED NATIONS, Dec 10 (IPS) - Climate change is the defining challenge of our time, and developing countries are recognized as hotspots for climatic risks. Through solidarity, peer-to-peer learning and collective self-reliance, developing countries are collaborating among themselves to address the threat.

UNITED NATIONS, Dec 10 (IPS) - The world had an unexpected number of people in crisis this year, which exceeded projected numbers the United Nations had expected, with climate change being one of the key crises that led to "needs to unprecedented levels" according to a new report. 

MADRID, Dec 09 (IPS) - As the COP25 deliberations enter the decisive final week, representatives of environmental and social organisations gathered in a parallel summit are pressing the governments to adopt stronger commitments in the face of a worsening climate emergency.

ROME and ACCRA, Dec 09 (IPS) -

As urbanization continues apace, coupled with rapid population growth and rural to urban migration, the challenges for inclusive rural transformation continue, and the importance of fostering improved rural-urban linkages for better food systems becomes increasingly important.

According to the UN, by 2050 some 66% of the world's population of 9 billion is expected to live in urban areas. Such rapid urbanization is increasingly shaping the rural space and rural livelihoods (through markets, demand for agricultural goods and labour, migration, and through the provision of services to rural areas). It is therefore critical for the increasing emphasis on urban development to take into account the importance of rural development.

MADRID, Spain, Dec 09 (IPS) - Miles Young is Director of the Social Development Program, Pacific Community (SPC)The term "environmental refugee" has gained prominence in recent years as climate change and desertification have threatened the livelihoods of millions of people, causing many to re-locate.

UNITED NATIONS, Dec 09 (IPS) - Filomena (15), a fisherman's daughter from a village in Nampula Province, Mozambique was married to a 21-year-old from the same village.

DHAKA, Bangladesh, Dec 09 (IPS) - Despite having remarkable success in leprosy control in the last decades, the Bangladesh government is now moving forward with a vision to build a leprosy- free country.