News headlines in 2020, page 104

WASHINGTON DC, Feb 20 (IPS) - Making sure that opportunities to enter the workforce are fair and rewarding for women benefits everyone. Yet, the average female workforce participation rate across countries is still 20 percentage points lower than the male rate, largely because gender gaps in wages and access to opportunities, such as education, stubbornly persist.

ROME, Feb 19 (IPS) - In a groundbreaking ruling in January 2020, the International Court of Justice demanded that Myanmar halt all measures that contribute to the genocide of the Rohingya community.

ISLAMABAD, Feb 19 (IPS) - "He struck his head, his side, his stomach and went on hitting him. When Hunain said he could not breathe, the teacher slammed him against the wall, saying, 'Being dramatic are we?'" This is the eye witness account from the classmate of 17-year-old Pakistani student, Hunain Bilal, who was allegedly beaten to death by his teacher after he failed to memorise his lessons.

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 19 (IPS) - A report released last week has detailed the complex ways in which President Donald Trump's ‘Global Gag Rule' (GGR), that blocks U.S. global health assistance to foreign non-governmental facilities providing abortion or abortion-related services, is affecting the population in Malawi, a country already hard hit with numerous climate change disasters. 

NEW YORK, Feb 19 (IPS) - As reporters for Nigeria's Premium Times newspaper, Samuel Ogundipe and Azeezat Adedigba told CPJ they spoke often over the phone. They had no idea that their regular conversations about work and their personal lives were creating a record of their friendship.

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 18 (IPS) - When UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres addressed the 193-member General Assembly last December, he focused on the smoldering climate crisis-- pointing out that the last five years have been the hottest ever recorded.

BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe, Feb 18 (IPS) - Zimbabwe is making fresh commitments to open up its airwaves with government promising to issue licences to private television and community radio stations before the end of the year.

SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 18 (IPS) - In an annual ritual early in the year, most major economic organizations have released forecasts for the global economy in 2020. Incredibly, almost as a reminder of where financial power resides in this day and age, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) released its forecasts at the World Economic Forum's 50th annual meeting in Davos.

OAKLAND, California, Feb 18 (IPS) - When we were children, a long auto trip would require a stop every hour or so to clean the windshield of the insects that had been intercepted.

Feb 18 (IPS) - Over the last few decades, groundwater has become the major source of irrigation for Indian agriculture. Pumped by millions of privately-owned tube-wells, it contributes 60 percent of the water used for irrigation, having grown by 105 percent since the 1970s.