News stories by Carey L. Biron, page 19

WASHINGTON, Apr 08 (IPS) - The World Bank will be placing stronger emphasis on issues of land tenure and socially and environmentally sustainable agricultural investing, it announced Monday.

WASHINGTON, Apr 04 (IPS) - A first-time ranking of 54 top research universities in the United States and Canada has found that a miniscule percentage of funding goes to neglected diseases, despite the outsized influence that public universities play in developing medicines for illnesses often ignored by the private sector.

WASHINGTON, Apr 02 (IPS) - World Bank President Jim Kim has unveiled a series of new institutional goals aimed at ending extreme poverty by 2030 and focusing on the promotion of "shared prosperity" – increasing the incomes of the poorest 40 percent in each country while placing increased focus on dealing with climate change.

WASHINGTON, Mar 29 (IPS) - Environmentalists and public health advocates are lauding a key, long-awaited proposal put forward by President Barack Obama's administration that would require cleaner gasoline and more effective technologies on vehicles, cutting various harmful emissions by 40 to 80 percent.

WASHINGTON, Mar 28 (IPS) - An environment group here is warning that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), a key government regulator, may have been haphazardly approving thousands of pesticides for decades, some of which pose risks to both human and environmental health.

WASHINGTON, Mar 27 (IPS) - The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is urging national governments around the world to roll back or eliminate subsidies on petroleum-based energy sources, estimating that this alone could result in a 13-percent decline in global carbon dioxide emissions.

WASHINGTON, Mar 26 (IPS) - Environmentalists and others here are reacting with concern to a surprise announcement on Monday of a major deal that would see U.S. natural gas exported to the United Kingdom, marking the first time that such sales have been permitted.

WASHINGTON, Mar 23 (IPS) - The 35-member Organisation of American States (OAS) on Friday voted unanimously to approve a series of reforms to the Inter-American human rights system, but stepped back from proposals that had caused the greatest concern among civil society groups.

WASHINGTON, Mar 21 (IPS) - A leaked copy of a major World Bank strategy paper, outlining a new institutional approach to tackling poverty through 2030, has worried some humanitarian groups and anti-poverty advocates, who say the bank has failed to suggest mechanisms that would allow it to adequately track or deal with growing levels of income inequality around the world.

WASHINGTON, Mar 21 (IPS) - Rights groups and government officials here have been testifying in a string of hearings, before both bodies of the U.S. Congress, on how to overhaul the United States' huge immigration detention system, the scope of which has expanded massively in recent years in ways that some suggest impinge on civil and human rights.