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News (58)
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World Bank’s Attack on Small Farmers |
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By :AfricaFocus Bulletin |
| 27 May 2019 |
Editor`s Note:
“Enabling the Business of Agriculture,” promoted by the World Bank, and now enhanced with a new sub-indicator on land policy, is presented as a way to advance agricultural development, particularly in Africa. In reality, notes a new report from the Oakland Institute, it gives an additional push to a
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DRC: Failed Agro-Industrial Park Model |
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By :Oakland Institute and HLRN |
| 25 April 2019 |
The Bukanga Lonzo Debacle: The Failure of Agro-Industrial Parks in DRC is a new report of the Oakland Institute that exposes the numerous land rights violations and human rights abuses, pollution and health hazards, misspent funds, charges of embezzlement and corruption, and legal action since the establishment and collapse of
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Vanishing Biodiversity Threatens Our Food |
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By :FAO |
| 23 February 2019 |
The biodiversity that is crucial for our food and agriculture is disappearing by the day
FAO launches the first-ever global report on the state of biodiversity that underpins our food systems
ROME—The first-ever report of its kind presents mounting and worrying evidence that the biodiversity that underpins our food systems is disappearing
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Post-capitalism: Life within Environmental Limits |
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By :Dr Samuel Alexander and Professor Brendan Gleeson, University of Melbourne |
| 19 February 2019 |
Capitalism’s limitless growth on a finite planet means the economic system we take for granted could end soon. If so, transformative and sustainable change must come from grassroots action
It may seem as though capitalism has always been a part of the Western world, but that’s not true. Although the
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AU Summit on Displacement Crisis |
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By :HIC-HLRN |
| 09 February 2019 |
Already 55 years ago, the Organization of African States was born with the purpose of peace and unity in what is now the African Union (AU), the largest regional organization on earth. This year, the 32nd regular annual AU summit at Addis Ababa (10–11 February 2019) focuses on another distinguishing
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Eating within Planetary Proportions |
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By :HLRN |
| 30 January 2019 |
The EAT-Lancet Commission on Food, Planet, Health has convened 37 of the worlds’ leading scientists to reach a scientific consensus that defines a healthy and sustainable diet within the limits of our global ecosystem. Their conclusions contribute to the specificity needed to align human behavior with the goal of sustaining the human
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USA: Most Citizens in 3rd World Conditions |
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By :Yossarian Johnson, The Intellectualist |
| 30 January 2019 |
A study by an MIT economist shows that the United States of America has regressed materially to a third-world nation for most of its citizens.
America divided: This concept increasingly graces political discourse in the U.S., pitting left against right, conservative thought against the liberal agenda. But for decades, [U.S.] Americans
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Leading Landless Women |
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By :Fredrick Mugira,Pulitzer center |
| 13 December 2018 |
Up to 10.3 million hectares of land has been acquired by investors from individuals, communities and governments in the 11 Nile basin countries since 2000. That is according to Land Matrix, a global and independent land monitoring initiative.
Apart from private investors, Land Matrix data shows that several countries outside of
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UN Peasants’ Rights Declaration Adopted in GA |
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By :HLRN |
| 20 November 2018 |
NEW YORK—The UN General Assembly’s Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) passed a draft that would have the Assembly adopt the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas. This vote assures that the Declaration will enter the next edition of Human Rights:
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UNHRC Adopts Peasant Rights Declaration |
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By :La Via Campesina |
| 30 September 2018 |
UN Human Rights Council passes a resolution adopting the peasant rights declaration in Geneva
GENEVA—Seventeen years of long and arduous negotiations later, peasants and other people working in rural areas are only a step away from having a UN Declaration that could defend and protect their rights to land, seeds, biodiversity, local
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Puerto Rico: Parasites in Paradise |
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By :Democracy Now |
| 06 June 2018 |
Puerto Rico continues to recover from Hurricane Maria as it commemorates 120 years of US occupation (since 1898). In the ongoing post-disaster phase, the island Is becoming a “playground for the privileged,” where disaster-capitalist investors move in as homes foreclose and schools close.
While healthcare, the public school system and infrastructure
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Another Mozambique Land Grab |
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By :Timothy A. Wise, Tufts University, Global Development and Environment Institute |
| 23 May 2018 |
Growing Resistance: The Rise and Fall of Another Mozambique Land Grab
The rice fields of Xai-Xai, three hours up the coast from Maputo, are vast, coming into view as we descended onto the alluvial plain from the villages that dot the hills above. They stretch across the plains toward the Indian Ocean
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HICtionary Newly Updated |
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By :HIC-HLRN |
| 06 May 2018 |
HIC-HLRN has just updated the HICtionary: Key Habitat Terms from A to Z. This reference work is the result of deliberation and debate across multiple specializations, regions and cultures within the membership of Habitat International Coalition (HIC). The purpose of that debate—and this reference work—have been to consolidate and harmonize
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Right to the City in Greater Beirut |
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By :HIC-HLRN and Amel Association |
| 14 April 2018 |
HLRN has just released its new publication Right to the City in Greater Beirut: Context Assessment in Light of the Refugee and Displacement Crisis. This assessment offers critical insight into municipal governance in Greater Beirut, a city largely formed and characterized by human migration through its history, while more recently
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Smallholder Farmers` Rights are Women`s Rights |
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By :Barbara Adams, Global Policy Watch |
| 20 March 2018 |
Most farms in developing and least developed countries are small, generally plots of less than two hectares of land. Smallholder farmers manage over 80% of the world’s estimated 500 million small farms and provide over 80% of the food consumed in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, contributing significantly to poverty reduction
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Coca-Cola, Nestlé Privatizing Guarani Aquifer |
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By :Amanda Froelich, Truth Theory |
| 05 February 2018 |
Coca-Cola and Nestlé to privatize the largest reserve of water in South America
Private companies such as Coca-Cola and Nestlé are allegedly in the process of privatizing the largest reserve of water, known as the Guarani Aquifer, in South America. The aquifer is located beneath the surface of Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and
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Pakistan: Empowering Sindh’s Landless Farmers |
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By :Amin Ahmed, Dawn |
| 05 February 2018 |
$5m project aims to empower Sindh’s landless farmers
An internationally funded project was launched in Sindh last week in an attempt to improve land tenancy for landless farmers.
Landless farmers (or haris) in the province usually have access to land as tenants through paperless agreements between them and landlords. Without having any
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South Africa Shouldn’t Copy Mugabe’s Land Reform |
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By :Economist.com |
| 25 January 2018 |
Of the many grievances from South Africa’s decades of white rule, the theft of land still smarts more than most. The “Natives Land Act” of 1913 set aside 90% of the country for whites, who made up less than a third of its people. Over the next eight decades a
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India: Landless Farmers to Access Land |
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By :Prabhudatta Mishra, Financial Express |
| 24 January 2018 |
Landless cultivators to be farmers too! Change of definition to extend assorted benefits to 14 cr currently excluded
Change of definition to extend assorted benefits to 14 crore currently excluded.
Over 14 crore (140 million) households who cultivate on land owned by others under a formal lease agreement or even under a
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New UN Declaration on Peasant Rights |
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By :Shivani Chaudhry, HLRN India/Open Global Rights |
| 04 January 2018 |
A new UN declaration could finally protect rural and landless peoples. The UN has drafted a groundbreaking declaration that has the potential to protect the human rights of peasants, rural workers and landless people. There is room, however, to strengthen its provisions.
Despite their significant contributions to food security, sustainable development,
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Learning Journey on Agroecology in Lebanon |
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By :HIC-HLRN |
| 28 November 2017 |
HIC-HLRN was invited to participate to the Learning Journey on Local Solidarity Partnerships for Agroecology in Lebanon from 22 to 25 November 2017, organized by Urgenci, the international network for community supported agriculture with the support of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).
The Learning Journey
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Tribute to Patterson Kuria Gathuru |
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By :HLRN |
| 15 November 2017 |
Our colleague and friend, Patterson Kuria Gathuru, left us on 15 November 2017. He is known to us as the Habitat International Coalition’s co-member on the IPC, advocating the issues and human rights of the urban food-insecure constituency. Many of you also know him as an IPC colleague in this
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Out of Africa: Human Rights Habitat Struggles |
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By :Marie Huchzermeyer, CUBES/Wits Univ. and Joseph Schechla, HLRN |
| 07 November 2017 |
From Africa to the World: Struggling for Human Rights to Housing, Land and the City
Mid-October 2017, Nairobi was host to an intense engagement on housing rights, social justice and the right to the city. This was amid political turmoil in Kenyan towns and cities, and unrelated to this but largely
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Food Companies Threaten Environmental Activists |
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By :Oxfam International |
| 07 September 2017 |
Despite committing to deforestation-free supply chains, the top 10 food and beverage companies lack policies to protect the activists and communities caring for the environment from intimidation, threats and attacks, according to a new Oxfam report.
Commercial farming of some everyday food ingredients, like soy and palm oil, are driving massive
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Global Peasant Movement Convene at Bilbao |
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By :Huffington Post |
| 28 July 2017 |
Global Peasant Movement Assesses and Responds to a Heated Political Moment
Four years ago, La Vía Campesina brought its peasant activists from around the world to Jakarta for its VI International Conference. The gathering was held in a padepokan, a Javanese center reserved for the teaching and exchanging of knowledge and
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No SDGs without Major Progress on Land |
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By :Luca Chinotti, International Land Coalition |
| 28 July 2017 |
Land and the SDGs: Key takeaways from the 2017 HLPF and what we need to do next
This was the clear and strong message that was brought by the land community into the major global forum on the SDGs, the High Level Political Forum (HLPF), which is the central platform for
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“Spotlight” on UN High-Level Forum, SDGs |
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By :HIC-HLRN |
| 10 July 2017 |
As the UN High-Level Forum opens in New York, a global civil society report spotlights the role of big business in hindering development and deepening economic and social disparity.
Unbridled privatization, corporate capture and mass-scale tax abuse are blocking progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals, argues a new report by a
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Mobilization Call: 60 Years after Treaty of Rome |
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By :La Via Campesina |
| 14 March 2017 |
For healthy and quality food, decent work, and a just and sustainable agricultural policy in a Europe of the People and of Solidarity.
We call on ECVC’s member organizations, allied groups, grassroots networks, and the whole peasant and food sovereignty movement in Europe to mobilize this 25 March – on the
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Report: Forced Evictions Fuel Land Disputes |
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By :Kieran Guilbert, Rights Resources |
| 09 February 2017 |
DAKAR (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Forced evictions of local communities from their lands by foreign companies fuel around two-thirds of land ownership disputes across Africa, often sparking strikes or violence which can prove costly to investors, activists said on Thursday.
Pushing people off their land drives more conflict over land rights
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Brazil: Eucalyptus War on Quilombo Lands |
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By :Luisa Torre and Patrik Camporez Macao, Al Jazeera |
| 05 January 2017 |
Brazil`s quilombos face eucalyptus giant in land war. "They stole our forests and our water. We took our medicine from the forest. Now, they put police and dogs at our door."
ESPIRITO SANTO, Brazil—In Sape do Norte, in the far north of Espirito Santo, Brazil, 32 communities refer to the 111,000 hectares
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World Bank: Gaza Water Crisis, Irreversible Damage |
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By :Amira Haas, Haaretz |
| 18 December 2016 |
The World Bank acknowledges there is a water crisis in the Gaza Strip, but it blames overpumping—not the Israeli occupation. For information of Israel’s preemptive pumping of Gaza’s aquifer, see Sustainable Management of the West Bank and Gaza Strip Aquifers (SUSMAQ) report المياه العابرة للحدود (2004) and map Land Times/أحوال
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Following the Money: Justice for Land Grabs |
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By :Natalie Bugalski and David Pred, Inclusive Development |
| 16 December 2016 |
Following the Money: Illuminating the path to justice for global land grabs
This year, our organization, Inclusive Development International, launched the Follow the Money initiative – a new tool to fight land grabs and other corporate abuses. It’s a simple idea, but we believe it has the potential to be
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Land Rights Defender Killings Tripled in 2016 |
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By :PANAP |
| 10 December 2016 |
2015 had been the worst year on record for killings of land and environmental defenders who are struggling to protect land, forests and rivers from privately interested takers. But, in 2016, roughly 16 land rights advocates have been killed each month from January through November.
PENANG, Malaysia—Advocacy group PAN Asia Pacific
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EU Aid Rewards Western Sahara Occupation |
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By :WSRW |
| 24 November 2016 |
For the second year in a row, the Moroccan government has spent most of the EU`s fish sector support on the development of the fishing industry in occupied Western Sahara. And the EU was fully aware of it.
Under the EU-Morocco Fisheries Partnership Agreement, entered into force in July 2014, Morocco
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Haiti Aid Betrayal: Gifting the Trojan Peanut |
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By :Al Jazeera News and agencies |
| 29 August 2016 |
Over 50 groups of farmers and aid workers seek to stop planned 500-tonne shipment that US officials term a donation.
Peanut producers in Haiti have united to block the delivery of a 500-tonne shipment of nuts from the US.
They say the shipment threatens to undermine the livelihood of thousands of people
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Hunger a Weapon of War in Syria, Yemen, Nigeria |
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By :Isabel Malsang, AFP, reliefweb.int |
| 07 August 2016 |
While grain silos in many Western countries may overflow this winter, tens of millions of people risk going without food as hunger is being used more than ever as a weapon of war.
More than 50 million people living in 17 conflict-ridden countries are in "severe food insecurity", two UN agencies
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USA: Protests over GMO Label Law |
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By :Ryan Rifai, Al Jazeera |
| 04 August 2016 |
US food safety campaigners outraged over GMO label law
Campaigners say new law allows producers to obscure GMO content on food packaging
Many believe GMOs and pesticides are harmful to people`s health and the environment [EPA]
Food safety organisations in the US have condemned a new law they say will allow food
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HIC Addresses Habitat III PrepCom3 |
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By :HIC-HLRN |
| 27 July 2016 |
The “New Urban Agenda,” from its inception, is inconsistent with historic agreements, today’s global priorities and the “world we need.” Particular interests have narrowed the Habitat Agenda to urban priorities, subordinated rural areas and ignored issues of forced migration, presuming that urbanization is “inevitable” and beyond human will or policy
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To Farm or Not to Farm? This Is the Question |
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By :Baher Kamal, Inter Press Services |
| 19 July 2016 |
The dilemma is critical: on the one hand, there is an absolute need to produce more food for the world’s steadily growing population; on the other, there is pressing urgency to halt -and further revert- the increasing trend to deplete the forests, which are as necessary for human survival as
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UN: Agriculture and Forestry for Food Security |
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By :UN News Center |
| 18 July 2016 |
Agriculture and forestry can improve food security, according to a new United Nations report released today, at the start of World Forest Week.
Farming is globally the most significant driver of deforestation, but promoting a more positive interaction between agriculture and forestry can build sustainable agricultural systems and improve food systems,
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Israel: Water as a Tool to Dominate Palestinians |
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By :Camilla Corradin, Al Jazeera |
| 20 June 2016 |
Israel deliberately denies Palestinians control over their water sources and sets the ground for water domination.
Occupied West Bank—As temperatures rise and summer months approach, yet again this year, thousands of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank are being deprived of their most basic need - access to water - as
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Standing up to TNC Land Grab in Sierra Leone |
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By :HLRN |
| 16 June 2016 |
HLRN has joined over 40 civil society organizations to express deep concern over the impact of a monoculture agricultural project that involves the dispossession of the people living in Malen Chiefdom, Pujehun District in Sierra Leone.
The project is the subject of an investment by SOCFIN Agricultural Company Sierra Leone Ltd.
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Brazil: Guarani & Kaiowá Face Forced Eviction |
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By :FIAN International |
| 12 June 2016 |
With no access to their legitimate territory, the members of the Guarani and Kaiowá Apyka`i community will be prevented from exercising their fundamental rights as indigenous peoples, including feeding themselves adequately.
Despite intensive and coordinated international action, the sentence by the 1st Federal Court of Dourados, Mato Grosso do Sul has followed
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New Policy on Smallholders` Market Access |
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By :CFS |
| 09 June 2016 |
The Open Ended Working Group (OEWG) on Connecting Smallholders to Markets of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) convened from 8-9 June 2016, at the headquarters of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO), in Rome, Italy. Building on the outcomes of the 2015 High-Level Forum on
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Food Experts: “Adopt Agroecology, or Fail” |
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By :IPES-Food |
| 02 June 2016 |
BRUSSLES/TRONDHEIM—Input-intensive crop monocultures and industrial-scale feedlots must be consigned to the past in order to put global food systems onto sustainable footing, according to the world’s foremost experts on food security, agro-ecosystems and nutrition.
The solution is to diversify agriculture and reorient it around ecological practices, whether the starting point is
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Climate Changing and Food Production in Africa |
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By :albanydailystar.com |
| 21 May 2016 |
Africa’s food crops are currently in danger. Climate change is challenging food security in many parts of the world including Africa and if timed transformation in the continent isn’t carried out, there could be an impact on the food production in the region. African crops are facing due to climate
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4 Tibetan Land Defenders Get Suspended Sentence |
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By :Tibetan Center for Rights and Democracy |
| 14 April 2016 |
Four Tibetan men have been given suspended jail sentences for petitioning against government confiscation of their land in Ka Bharma nomadic camp in Thangkor (Ch: Tangke) Township in Dzoege (Ch: Ruoergai) County, Ngaba (Ch: Aba) Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province. The four Tibetans are identified as Phurkho, Rinchen
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HIC-critics on Habitat III Policy Papers |
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By :HIC |
| 05 February 2016 |
Since the very early stages of the Habitat III preparations, Habitat International Coalition (HIC) has called for the integrity of the Habitat II (1996) commitments and modalities; this demand has three related aspects:
• Processes must uphold the Habitat II-established principle to be as inclusive as possible;
• Maintain the Habitat Agenda,
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W. African Caravan for Land, Water and Seeds |
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By :The Global Convergence of Land and Water Struggles – West Africa |
| 25 January 2016 |
The Global Convergence of Land and Water Struggles – West Africa invites you to join the West African Caravan for Land, Water and Seeds, which will mobilize 15 countries of the sub-region in March 2016 in order to
Ø Sensitize the populations of the West African countries about land, water
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UN Chief: “Syria Starvation=War Crime” |
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By :Somini Sengupta and Nick Cumming-Brucej, The New York Times |
| 14 January 2016 |
UNITED NATIONS—The head of the United Nations said on Thursday that the warring parties in Syria were committing war crimes by withholding food from civilians. He called for all sides to lift their sieges immediately and unconditionally “as a confidence-building gesture” ahead of peace talks scheduled for Jan. 25.
Meanwhile, aid
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Keeping up the Fight against TNCs |
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By :FIAN |
| 10 December 2015 |
On the occasion of Human Rights Day, FIAN International releases its annual publication, ‘Right to Food Journal’. The publication puts under the spotlight the increasing influence of transnational corporations over policy-making, as well as its detrimental impact on the realization of the human right to food and nutrition.
Termed as “corporate
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COP21: Land & Water Convergence Speaks |
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By :Global Convergence of Land and Water Struggles |
| 08 December 2015 |
Parallel to the climate conference in Paris, social movements and allies within the “Global Convergence of Land and Water Struggles” stand up for climate justice and real solutions to the climate crisis. This alliance of struggles has delivered its message to the COP21 currently meeting at Paris. Their statement follows.
The
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Syria War Prompts 1st Doomsday Seed Vault Draw |
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By :Laura Wagner and EarthSky |
| 23 September 2015 |
The Syrian Civil War prompts the first withdrawal from the "Doomsday Seed Vault" in the Arctic
The Svalbard Global Seed Vault was opened on 26 February 2008. Carved into the Arctic permafrost and filled with samples of the world`s most important seeds, it`s a Noah`s Ark of food crops to be used
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Human Rights & Local Government Report |
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By :HIC-HLRN |
| 18 September 2015 |
On 22 September 2015, the United Nations Human Rights Council (Geneva) will consider the final report of its Advisory Committee on the Role of local government in the promotion and protection of human rights. The report is the outcome of a two-year study on the subject by the Human Rights Council
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HIC Reviews Habitat III Issue Papers |
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By :HIC-HLRN |
| 31 July 2015 |
Habitat International Coalition has just issued its compilation of inputs from Members and officers following their review of the Habitat III Issue Papers. The 22 thematic contributions from technical experts selected by the UN-Habitat/Habitat III Secretariat have been drafted as a framework for the debate leading up to the Third
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Do RAI Principles Meet the Task? |
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By :Sylvia Kay, rightingfinance |
| 06 May 2015 |
On 15 October 2014, the Member States of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS), hosted at the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, approved the “Principles on Responsible Investment in Agriculture and Food Systems.” (“RAI” or “RAI Principles”)
In a recent assessment of the principles, the Transnational Institute (TNI) exposes
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CFS Develops Protracted-crisis Policy |
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By :HIC-HLRN |
| 01 May 2015 |
In October of this year, the Committee on Global Food Security is expected to adopt the new Framework of Action [to ensure] Food Security and Nutrition in Protracted Crises. That global policy promises to usher in a new approach that formally operationalizes humanitarian, development and human rights principles combined to
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Islamic State Evicts Iraq farmers |
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By :Sophie Cousins, AlJazeera |
| 29 July 2014 |
The group`s takeover of farms in Qaraqosh, 30km from Mosul, has caused fear among residents, and a jump in food prices.
Qaraqosh—In the dark of night, on a farm about 30km southeast of Iraq`s second largest city, Mosul, Sabah Zura Sukkariyya woke to the sound of a truckload of gunmen arriving
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