News headlines for “Consumption and Consumerism”, page 1142
Proposed Global Accord Called a Disaster for Public Services
- Inter Press Service

WASHINGTON, Sep 17 (IPS) - Nearly 350 international civil society organisations are urging countries taking part in new negotiations towards an agreement on "trade in services" to abandon the effort, warning that the accord would negatively impact on universal access to and national regulation of public services.
“The Oil Is Ours” – But Its Secrets Are the NSA’s
- Inter Press Service

RIO DE JANEIRO, Sep 16 (IPS) - Reported U.S. spying on Brazil's Petrobras oil firm revived the controversy over opening up the company, a symbol of Brazilian sovereignty since the 1950s, to foreign investment.
Argentina's Imports Climb Despite State Controls
- Inter Press Service

BUENOS AIRES, Sep 16 (IPS) - To maintain its trade surplus, Argentina continues to control imports – a strategy that has bolstered its national industry but is questioned by importers, partners in the Mercosur trade bloc, and rich countries.
Seeds of Conflict Sprout in the Balkans
- Inter Press Service

BELGRADE, Sep 16 (IPS) - This year, summer in the Balkans has been nice and warm, leaving behind a land of plenty, and enough food on the table. Except that people are talking about tomatoes "that don't taste as they used to," watermelons that are too watery, cabbages that are hard to slice through and onions that do not sting your eyes.
Scarcity Reveals an Inaccessible Excess
- Inter Press Service

NAIROBI, Sep 15 (IPS) - For decades Zakayo Ekeno has walked Turkana County's arid land, herding his livestock, and his father's before that. Yet nothing about the persistently drought-stricken land in northern Kenya could have given him an indication of the wealth beneath it.
OP-ED: Getting Children Into Somalia’s Classrooms
- Inter Press Service

MOGADISHU, Sep 14 (IPS) - Somalia is well-known for being a country torn apart by decades of conflict, by hunger and instability. Today, with fragile stability emerging and a new government in place, there is an opportunity to define a new future of peace, prosperity and justice.??
Politics Eats Into Palestinian Breadbasket
- Inter Press Service

JIFTLICK, Occupied West Bank, Sep 14 (IPS) - In the Jordan Valley, contrasts are stark. Lush green agricultural fields and fenced-in greenhouses belong to the Israeli settlements that dot the landscape and benefit from the area's abundant water supply on one hand. On the other, Palestinian farmers denied access to their lands and other resources by the Israeli authorities struggle to cultivate the most basic crops and make a living wage.
U.S. Debates Climate Impact of Development Investments
- Inter Press Service

WASHINGTON, Sep 13 (IPS) - A debate is heating up here over the extent to which U.S. government-facilitated private-sector development investments should be required to take into account how those ventures impact on climate change.
Hopeful but Homesick in Peshawar Schools
- Inter Press Service

PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Sep 13 (IPS) - "I miss my mother and cry every night," eight-year-old Afaq Ali tells IPS. He is a Class 5 student at the University Public School in Peshawar, capital of Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and the administrative centre for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) to its west.
U.S. Report of GE Alfalfa Contamination Was "Inevitable"
- Inter Press Service

WASHINGTON, Sep 13 (IPS) - With state and federal government agencies investigating a U.S. farmer's complaint that his alfalfa crop may have been contaminated by a genetically modified strain, consumer rights groups are suggesting that such reports were inevitable.
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