ASUNCIÓN, Paraguay — Walk into the headquarters of the central bank of Paraguay, a sprawling seven-story structure surrounded by flowering silk floss trees, and the message is clear: officials proudly display charts showing a dizzying economic boom, with growth reaching 13 percent this year, making Paraguay the fastest-growing country in the Americas.
Author: WHES
A unified approach to climate change and hunger
Studies out of Ethiopia, India, Kenya and Niger show that children born during natural hazards, like droughts or floods, are more likely to be malnourished. Yet as the climate changes, it is poor countries – already struggling with hunger and food insecurity – that are increasingly likely to face these natural hazards.
A food fight over Food for Peace
After a decade of foreign wars, who’d have thought Washington would now be fighting over something called “Food for Peace”? Yet almost half the House Republicans voted against funding the Eisenhower-era icon in the previous Congress. And Wednesday found Rajiv Shah — the bright young star at the United States Agency for International Development — promoting wholesale changes that threaten old alliances with American farmers and mariners.
In Florida, a food-stamp recruiter deals with wrenching choices
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In hard times, open dissent and repression rise in Vietnam
HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam — His bookshelves are filled with the collected works of Marx, Engels and Ho Chi Minh, the hallmarks of a loyal career in the Communist Party, but Nguyen Phuoc Tuong, 77, says he is no longer a believer. A former adviser to two prime ministers, Mr. Tuong, like so many people in Vietnam today, is speaking out forcefully against the government.
Another scourge in his sights: guinea worm
CHICAGO — In his home office, Dr. Donald R. Hopkins has statues of the Hindu smallpox goddess and the Yoruba smallpox god. And, floating coiled up in a glass jar, something that looks like a yardlong strand of capellini but is actually one of the last Guinea worms on earth.
China cracks down on anti-corruption activists
BEIJING — The Chinese authorities have detained six anticorruption activists in recent days, expanding their crackdown on a citizen-led campaign that, on the surface at least, would appear to dovetail with the new leadership’s war on official graft.
Bolivan ranchers try to drive Tsimané indians off their land
EL JATATAL, Bolivia, Mar 25 2013 (IPS) – “We can’t take any more abuse,” Carmelo Tayo, the head of this small Tsimané indigenous village, says sadly. The community has lived for decades on land in Bolivia’s Amazon jungle that outsiders are now trying to gain control of.
Afghanistan – the world’s most dangerous place for aid workers
Attacks on aid workers in Afghanistan – the world’s most dangerous country for aid workers – are likely to be as high in 2013 as the worst year on record, 2011, according to a new report from the Afghanistan NGO Safety Office (ANSO) published today.
UNICEF report details the cost of malnutrition in children
More than a quarter of children under the age of 5 worldwide are permanently “stunted” from malnutrition, leaving them physically and intellectually weak, the United Nations Children’s Fund said in a report released Monday. Anthony Lake, executive director of the agency, better known as Unicef, said the organized provision of vitamins and clean water and a focus from birth on breast-feeding could have helped the 165 million children affected achieve normal brain and body development. But their lack of proper nutrition means instead they will suffer increased vulnerability to illness and early death. The United Nations report found that 24 countries with the highest levels of stunted children were concentrated in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.
