News headlines in 2019, page 36

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah, USA, Sep 09 (IPS) - The United Nations held its first major international conference in one of America's mountain states, bringing scores of civil society organizations (CSOs) to discuss ways on making "cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable by 2030."

NEW YORK, Sep 09 (IPS) - It has been a long, arduous journey – a journey ridden curiously with obstacles and indifference. Two decades have passed by since the UN General Assembly (UNGA) adopted, by consensus and without reservation, its landmark and norm-setting resolution 53/243 on the Declaration and Programme of Action on a Culture of Peace in 1999.

Sep 09 (IPS) - August is immensely important in the history of the Asian subcontinent, marking the month that India and Pakistan gained independence from the British in 1947. Now, in 2019, it has once again proved momentous, when, ten days before India's Independence day celebrations, prime minister Narendra Modi's government revoked the autonomy of Indian-administered Kashmir – a status provided for under the Indian Constitution.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, Sep 09 (IPS) - Mobs have attacked foreign-owned businesses on the streets of at least three South African cities in recent days. This has caused outrage across Africa. There have even been retaliatory attacks. The South African government, under pressure to protect her large international migrant communityquickly defused the attacks.

MANILA, Sep 08 (IPS) - Professor Ai Kurosaka remembers the day she first interacted with a person affected by Hansen's disease. It was 2003 and Kurosaka, then a graduate student of sociology at the Saitama University in Japan, had been assigned to interview ex-patients and their family members to document what kind of discrimination they faced. It was a very difficult task because nobody wanted to speak or identify themselves.

MANILA, Sep 08 (IPS) - Organisations supporting people affected by Hansen's disease (leprosy) have social rather than capitalist aims, but they need to take a business-minded approach to their work if they wish to be sustainable, experts at a global conference in Manila, Philippines said.

MANILA, Sep 07 (IPS) - Organisations of people affected by Hansen's Disease or leprosy agree that a global network of volunteer groups is key to eradicating the disease, but concrete steps need to be taken to move the idea from an often-discussed concept to a reality.

MANILA, Sep 07 (IPS) - Being part of a platform where leprosy-affected people from all over the world can freely interact, exchange and share opinions, ideas, experiences and strategies was always something Tasfaye Tadesse dreamt of.

BULAWAY, Zimbabwe, Sep 07 (IPS) - Former Zimbabwe strongman Robert Mugabe, who died this week, aged 95, leaves a mixed and divisive legacy.

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 07 (IPS) - Forest fires, droughts and other forms of land degradation cost the global economy as much as 15 trillion dollars every year and are deepening the climate change crisis, a top United Nations environment official said Friday.