Hilaire Avril interviews XAVIER HAREL, author of "The Great Escape: The Real Scandal of Tax Havens"

Xavier Harel: "Hairdryers are being sold to Nigeria for 3,800 dollars apiece or cassette players for 1,400 dollars" / Copyright: DR

PARIS, Mar 29 (IPS) – Between 30 and 40 percent of taxes that should be collected by developing countries [...]

By Servaas van den Bosch

A slogan seen on t-shirts at the meeting. / Servaas van den Bosch/IPS

WINDHOEK, Mar 29 (IPS) – Southern African governments must regain control over the negotiations on the trade deals known as economic partnership agreements (EPAs). Issues earmarked as deal-breakers should be resolved before talks to a full EPA are [...]

By Cam McGrath
CAIRO, Mar 26 (IPS) – Egypt's ruling party is taking measures to restrict the work of non-governmental organisations ahead of crucial parliamentary elections.

"The future is very dark for us," says Nasser Amin, director of the Arab Centre for the Independence of the Judiciary and Legal Profession (ACIJLP). "The government will do anything to [...]

By Tito Drago
MADRID, Mar 25 (IPS) – The only solution for the conflict over Morocco's occupation of the Western Sahara is to do what the Sahrawi people decide regarding their future, Zahra Ramdan, president of the Association of Sahrawi Women in Spain, told IPS.

Christopher Ross, United Nations envoy for the Western Sahara, expressed himself in [...]

By Ntandoyenkosi Ncube

Ghetto Artists director Saone Bokitshane performing at the Celebrating SADC Women in Theatre and Dance Festival / Ntandoyenkosi Ncube/IPS

JOHANNESBURG, Mar 25 (IPS) – "Some said, how can women dancers tell us about climate change? Some said, how can dancers talk about planting trees? Others asked, how can women dancers build schools? But [...]

By Evelyn Matsamura Kiapi
KAMPALA, Mar 25 (IPS) – They endure stigma, discrimination, violence and extreme poverty, but Ugandan women living with disabilities say the greatest challenge facing them centres on their reproductive health.

"In addition to the impacts of physical, mental, intellectual and sensor impairments, we are double discriminated (against), first as women, and then as [...]

By Lansana Fofana
FREETOWN, Mar 25 (IPS) – Former child soldier Komba Gbondo maimed and killed many people from his hometown, and the 25-year-old is still too terrified to return.

Gbondo was 13 when Revolutionary United Front (RUF) fighters invaded his home town of Tombodu, in the eastern district of Kono and forcefully recruited and conscripted dozens [...]

Isolda Agazzi interviews Dr EL HADJI DIOUF, expert on the economic partnership agreements (Part 1)

Dr El Hadji Diouf: Due to lack of political will, the EPA negotiations will not be suspended. / Aida Diop/IPS

GENEVA, Mar 25 (IPS) – The contentious trade deals known as the economic partnership agreements (EPAs) will in their current form [...]

By Violet Nakamba Mengo
LUSAKA, Mar 24 (IPS) – HIV-positive Bupe Mwamba, 22, lies next to her newborn baby girl at the rural clinic she just gave birth in and wonders if her baby is HIV-positive too.

She has been for counselling throughout her antenatal check-ups and knows there is a chance her baby girl may be [...]

By Jabulani Sikhakhane
JOHANNESBURG, Mar 24 (IPS) – The expected arrival of 350,000 football fans in South Africa for the World Cup in June has provoked fears of increased levels of human trafficking. A new study suggests that one major obstacle to preventing this is the lack of accurate information about the extent of the problem.

South [...]

By Julio Godoy
BERLIN, Mar 24 (IPS) – Rampant illegal fishing is hitting some of the poorest West African countries the hardest as this practice is globally most rife in the east central Atlantic Ocean area, which covers the territorial waters of some 15 African countries from Morocco and Mauritania in the north to Angola in [...]

By Susan Anyangu-Amu
NAIROBI, Mar 23 (IPS) – Gideon Lepalo describes growing up in Loiyangalani, 20 kilometres from Lake Turkana, as magical. However, he fears the building of Gilgel Gibe III dam in Ethiopia, upstream of the Omo River, will soon mean that his childhood memories of the lake will be exactly that – memories.

According [...]

By Kristin Palitza
PAARL, South Africa, Mar 23 (IPS) – Teachers in Africa need to be trained to teach pupils from multiple grades simultaneously because although this is a common form of instruction on the continent, many teachers are not educated to do this.

Multi-grade education – a method where a teacher instructs pupils of different ages [...]

By Isolda Agazzi
GENEVA, Mar 23 (IPS) – African cotton-producing countries hope that Brazil’s intended retaliation after its success at the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) dispute settlement body will have a positive spin-off for them but seem reticent about pursuing a similar course of action against the U.S. for its continued use of subsidies in cotton [...]