By Julio Godoy
PARIS, Aug 26 (IPS) – The severe drought in the Horn of Africa, which has caused the death of at least 30,000 children and is affecting some 12 million people, especially in Somalia, is a direct consequence of weather phenomena associated with climate change and global warming, environmental scientists say.

"The present drought in [...]

By Brahima Ouédraogo

The late Thomas Sankara. / Olivier Bain/Wikicommons

OUAGADOUGOU, Jul 29 (IPS) – Opposition members of parliament in Burkina Faso have called on France to open its archives to look for evidence of involvement of the French secret services in the 1987 death of Thomas Sankara.

The call is the latest effort in a long-running [...]

By Timothy Spence
BRUSSELS, Jul 1 (IPS) – Global demand for African oil and precious metals has fuelled a continental surge in exports, helping some of the world’s poorest countries rebound from the 2009 economic shock.

African countries also stand to benefit from trade deals with donors and development agencies. Seeking to boost "south-south" trade, the Asian [...]

By Ren Bishop
BRUSSELS, Jun 30 (IPS) – On an unusually hot Belgian afternoon, Thoko Kaime, leans back in his chair and explains how ‘township’ actually means ‘slum’ in his home country of Malawi.

"When you’re growing in the midst of poverty, it’s quite hard to be inspired because there is nothing really to inspire you," says [...]

By Matt Carr

Numbers or people? Migrants at Lampedusa. / Ilaria Vechi/IPS.

LAMPEDUSA, Italy, Jun 22 (IPS) – It’s only a few hundred metres from the rocky hillside overlooking Lampedusa’s commercial port to the other side of the protected bay. For more than a decade this narrow strip of ocean has been a migratory gateway into [...]

By Matt Carr

Refugees land at Lampedusa island in Italy. / Illaria Vechi/IPS.

LAMPEDUSA, Italy, Jun 21 (IPS) – It’s 4.30 in the morning and the full moon is low in the sky above Lampedusa harbour as the Guardia di Finanza patrol boat escorts a fishing boat containing 19 Tunisian migrants into the closed military port. [...]

By Matt Carr

Rania Abdechakour / Bolton News Picture Agency

BOLTON, Jun 10 (IPS) – The British Home Office has ruled that a severely disabled five-year-old girl should be returned to Algeria. The ruling demonstrates just how tough some European governments are getting on immigration.

Rania Abdechakour originally came to the UK in 2008 to stay [...]

Analysis by A. D. McKenzie
PARIS, Jun 8 (IPS) – As G20 ministers met here Tuesday to discuss nuclear safety, another meeting has been taking place 6,000km away – to examine green business growth.

In Brazzaville, capital of the Republic of the Congo, environmentalists, policy-makers and businesspeople kicked off the second international Green Business Forum in Africa, [...]

By Inês Santinhos Gonçalves* – IPS/Street News Service

Isaac Nwankwere, who escaped from Nigeria, sells the Augustin street paper in Austria. / Mario Lang/Augustin

CARDIFF, UK, Jun 7 (IPS) – The reasons why people become street paper vendors are many and diverse. Some are homeless; others suffer mental or physical health problems, struggle with addiction or [...]

By Timothy Spence
BRUSSELS, Jun 1 (IPS) – Facing unrest in the north and a struggle against poverty elsewhere, leaders of the African Union and their European counterparts are working as “equal partners” to spread democracy and economic opportunity across the African continent.

Heads of the unions’ executive bodies held two days of talks that were to [...]

By A.D.McKenzie
DEAUVILLE, France, May 28 (IPS) – Stressing that there is only so much money to go around, development experts worry that the aid package the Group of Eight (G8) has announced for North Africa may mean fewer funds for the rest of the continent.

During their two-day summit here that ended Friday, G8 leaders envisaged [...]

Data exclusivity would hamper Indian pharmaceutical companies’ production of affordable generic versions of essential medicines.

Rich World accused of reneging on pledges of funding; LDC govts charged with wasting aid and failing to take advantage of strong economic growth.

Sierra Leone’s first fruit processing plant has begun operations in a special “export opportunity zone”.

Barack Obama has repeated that NATO not U.S. planes will maintain no-fly zone.