News headlines for “Free Trade and Globalization”, page 881
DEVELOPMENT-KENYA: Micro-Credit Helping Farmers to Plough Ahead
- Inter Press Service
Seventeen years ago it seemed like an impossible dream to provide thousands of low-income farmers with a way to borrow small amounts of money. But people working in the tea sector in the rural areas of central Kenya were determined to address farmers’ lack of access to credit. They started the Muramati Savings and Credit Cooperative Society.
LABOUR: Garment Workers of the South Unite
- Inter Press Service
They left behind months or years of slaving away -- in some cases, literally -- in garment sweatshops, working long hours for little to no pay. But breaking free from modern-day slavery or forced labour wasn't enough for a group of textile workers from Argentina and Thailand, who have gone on to forge a new kind of cooperation reaching halfway across the globe.
LATIN AMERICA: Radioactive Attack on Flesh-Eating Screw-Worm
- Inter Press Service
A biological control method used to eradicate screw-worm, a livestock parasite, in the United States, Mexico and Central America, has just been tested successfully in South America, where its adoption is being considered in the countries of the Southern Common Market (Mercosur): Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay.
ZIMBABWE: Debt Crowds Out Essential Spending on Health
- Inter Press Service
Zimbabwe’s debt burden of about 8,3 billion dollars, owed to internal and external institutions, is crowding out essential national budget items such as health and basic services, with detrimental effects for particularly women.
'Food Empires Creating Agricultural Crisis'
- Inter Press Service
Forget speculators, forget biofuel farmers. The real cause behind the permanent food and agricultural crisis is the imperial food regime, squeezing money out of agriculture, a Dutch professor says.
Chile Measures Its 'Water Footprints'
- Inter Press Service
How many litres of water are needed to produce one kilogram of table grapes? The current effort to measure the 'water footprint' of this and other Chilean exports could give us some answers by year's end.
Ending Africa's Hunger Means Listening to Farmers
- Inter Press Service
Africa is hungry - 240 million people are undernourished. Now, for the first-time, small African farmers have been properly consulted on how to solve the problem of feeding sub-Saharan Africa. Their answers appear to directly repudiate a massive international effort to launch an African Green Revolution funded in large part by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
SOUTHERN AFRICA: Strengthen Cooperation to Secure Power
- Inter Press Service
Southern African nations need to agree on a common operational system to manage energy in the region, environmental experts advise. If they don’t, the region could experience power shortages and resulting economic deficits.
SIERRA LEONE: Unfulfilled Promise of Free Maternal Health Care for Mothers
- Inter Press Service
Marie Musa, 37, is devastated. After the mother of four gave premature birth, her baby boy died a few hours later — because the hospital did not have enough incubators to rescue the infant.
ZAMBIA: Bumper Harvest May Prove an Embarassment of Riches
- Inter Press Service
Buoyed by government’s fertiliser subsidy, Zambia’s farmers produced 2.8 million tonnes of maize in the 2009/10 growing season. Initial delight over the increased harvest - up from 1.8 million tonnes the previous year - gave way to worry as farmers realised they could be stuck with most of the crop.
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