News headlines in December 2020, page 2

  1. Why Transforming Our Food Systems Is a Feminist Issue

    - Inter Press Service

    NAIROBI, Dec 22 (IPS) - In countries where women are most marginalized, discriminated under the law and where gendered norms prevent women from owning property and resources, people are also the hungriest. This is because gender equality and food systems are intertwined.

  2. A Decade after the Arab Spring, Tunisia Fails to Keep up with the Process of Democratisation

    - Inter Press Service

    NEW DELHI, India, Dec 22 (IPS) - Ten years ago a young street vendor, Mohamed Bouazizi set himself afire in the central Tunisian provincial town of Sidi Bouzid to protest against police harassment. Bouazizi’s sacrificial act served as a catalyst and inspired the Tunisian people to take over the streets that led to the Jasmine Revolution in the country. On January 4, 2011 Mohamed Bouazizi died, and ten days later the country's authoritarian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali’s rule ended when he fled to Saudi Arabia.

  3. Empowering Women through Wisdom

    - Inter Press Service

    COLOMBO, Sri Lanka, Dec 22 (IPS) - During the COVID 19 lockdown in Sri Lanka, seven women from diverse religious and ethnic backgrounds came together to deliver Wisdom and their message that women must be empowered and their voices for national unity must be heard through this movement.

  4. Islamic Feminists Speak on Fight to Reclaim Rights

    - Inter Press Service

    A story from Inter Press Service, an international news agency

    NEW DELHI, India, Dec 22 (IPS) - The court victory to allow women into the inner sanctum of a Sufi shrine in Mumbai was a significant victory for a secular rights-based movement led by Muslim women. However, there is a fear the political climate in India regarding Muslims, could put the women’s rights agenda on the back foot.

  5. The Night Arafat, Facing Death Threats, Slept in the UN Chiefs Office

    - Inter Press Service

    UNITED NATIONS, Dec 22 (IPS) - The United Nations, which is commemorating its 75th anniversary, continues to remain bogged down in one of the world’s most politically and militarily volatile regions: the Middle East.

  6. The Impact of COVID-19 on Child Marriage and Other Gender-Based Violence

    - Inter Press Service

    DHAKA, Bangladesh, Dec 21 (IPS) - I recently visited rural areas of Bangladesh amid the COVID-19 pandemic and returned to Dhaka with a new understanding of the impact that COVID-19 is having on child marriage, a harmful practice that is a global challenge. The fundamental shift that I saw was that child marriage, which has typically been encouraged by struggling parents, is now being encouraged by struggling girls. This worrisome trend underscores a new burden of the pandemic on the poor.

  7. A Pakistani Farmer is Using Technology to Stop Agricultural Exploitation

    - Inter Press Service

    AMMAN, Jordan, Dec 21 (IPS) - Anas Shaikh is a Pakistani farmer on a mission to bring solutions to the many difficulties small and medium-scale farmer’s face in making a sustainable living.

  8. Ugandas School Plan for Refugee Children Could Become a Global Template

    - Inter Press Service

    KAMPALA/KIKUBE/RWAMWANJA, Uganda, Dec 21 (IPS) - Thirteen-year-old Wita Kasanganjo is a pupil at Maratatu Primary School in the Kyangwali Refugee Settlement based in Uganda’s Hoima district. But last month, when Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni ordered the re-opening of schools for the first time since the mid-March nationwide closure, Kasanganjo was not part of the returning group of students. The government, in a cautious lifting of coronavirus lockdown restrictions, has allowed only pupils who are part of the final year or candidate classes to return to their schooling.    

  9. Online Violence, Fueled by Disinformation and Political Attacks, Deeply Harms Women Journalists

    - Inter Press Service

    WASHINGTON, Dec 18 (IPS) - An alarmingly high number of women journalists are now targets of online attacks associated with orchestrated digital disinformation campaigns. The impacts include self-censorship, retreat from visibility, an increased risk of physical injury, and a serious mental health toll. The main perpetrators? Anonymous trolls and political actors.

  10. Afghanistan's Historic Year: Peace Talks, Security Transition but Higher Levels of Violence

    - Inter Press Service

    BONN, Germany, Dec 18 (IPS) - While Afghanistan ends a historic year, filled with the hope for peace as the government and Taliban sat down for almost three months of consecutive peace talks for the first time in 19 years, it was also a year filled with violence with provisional statistics by the United Nations showing casualties for this year being higher than 2019.

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