News stories by Paul Virgo, page 3

ROME, Sep 22 (IPS) - Radical climate groups undeterred by risks and unpopularity as long as message gets acrossBlocking metros and highways in rush-hour traffic to stop commuters getting to work. Vandalizing petrol pumps to put them out of use. Halting sporting events such as the French Open and the British Grand Prix. Disrupting bemused art lovers by gluing oneself to priceless masterpieces.

ROME, Sep 08 (IPS) - In 1972 the Club of Rome alerted the world to the harm human economic systems were doing to the health of our planet in its seminal, best-selling report, The Limits to Growth. With the devastating impacts of the climate crisis hitting home harder than ever, especially in the Global South, that warning about the dangers of exponential economic growth has been fully vindicated.

Figures the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) presented here Tuesday revealing a reduction in the world's number of hungry people in 2010 for the first time in 15 years should be a cause for celebration. In reality it is a hollow success.

Saving the planet from environmental catastrophe is undoubtedly very important, but one of the reasons many people are not doing their bit could be that being green does not seem much fun.

When people talk about biodiversity loss, discussion often centres on the tragedy of animals like the tiger and the panda being in danger of extinction.

The bad news is that 1.02 billion people are going hungry in today's world of plentiful supplies. The even worse news is that this figure only tells part of the global food insecurity story.

The case of the three Italians arrested this month on suspicion of trying to assassinate a southern Afghan governor concluded with a happy ending of sorts and a sure fire certainty - an uncompromising attitude that makes war-zone medical aid doubly dangerous.

Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are guilty of judging a palm oil project in Uganda on innuendo rather than its merits, the United Nations poverty agency supporting the controversial scheme said, as the project starts to bear fruit for smallholder farmers.

While agricultural research has made massive strides over the years in helping the world produce more food from the same amount of land, around one in six people, the 1.02 billion hungry, have not noticed.

Developing countries must tone down the booming voice bureaucrats have in policies and target corruption if commitments to defeat hunger are to be turned into action, leaders and experts at a United Nations meeting said Wednesday.