POLITICS-KENYA: NGOs Bolster Women Candidates&#39 Media and Voter Savvy

A number of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have come to the assistance of female candidates ahead of Kenya's general elections, scheduled for Thursday, in the hope of giving them a fair shot at the polls - this in a country where lack of funds, resistance to women in leadership positions and various other factors tend to undermine women's electoral performance.

Q&A: "For Me, Money Has Been the Real Issue"

As IPS reported earlier this year, the financial cost of campaigning has weighed heavily on certain women candidates in Kenya's general elections, set to take place Dec. 27. With just hours remaining before the polls, we caught up with one of these candidates - Pamela Mburia - to find out how she'd managed to press ahead with her bid for office in the face of such difficulties.

KENYA: Women Parliamentary Candidates on the Ballot, But Not in the Race?

At first glance, it seems like a good news story. When Kenya goes to the polls next week for general elections, it will do so with record numbers of women on the ballot.

POLITICS-KENYA: A Call to Arm Women Candidates With More Than Speeches

Last Friday, Margaret Wanjiru - a parliamentary candidate in Kenya's Dec. 27 general elections - was reportedly attacked while campaigning in her Starehe constituency in the capital, Nairobi. While she escaped injury, her supporters are said to have been hurt and her campaign van extensively damaged by stoning...Still, those targeted in this incident were probably luckier than Martha Kibwana.

CLIMATE CHANGE: Solar Energy Firm Says Carbon Credits Don’t Work

A small but successful solar energy company involved in rural electrification in India is complaining that the Kyoto Protocol’s clean development mechanism (CDM) has been of no practical use to it.

TRADE: EPAs Signed ‘‘Under Duress’’, Says South Africa

African governments have signed economic partnership agreements with the European Union ‘‘under duress’’, according to Dr Rob Davies, South Africa’s deputy trade and industry minister.

POLITICS-US: Congress Clears More Funds for Both War and Relief

Racing to adjourn for the year, the U.S. Congress this week approved a 560- billion-dollar omnibus 2008 appropriation that includes 70 billion dollars more for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and sizable increases in development, refugee, and disaster assistance.

Q&A: ‘‘The EU Is a Bandit in Trade Negotiations’’

A lively debate has been taking place in Ghana for some time now over the likely effects that an economic partnership agreement (EPA) with the European Union would have on the country. This has been thanks in no small part to the work of Tetteh Hormeku, one of Africa’s most vocal campaigners on trade issues.

LATIN AMERICA: Rural Women Forge Their Own Path in Microenterprise

Rural women from five Andean countries presented their successful microenterprises as part of a regional competition for female crafts and food producers, which also served as an opportunity for sharing the life stories of these leaders in the struggle against poverty.

CHALLENGES 2007-2008: Regional Integration in Tatters Due to EPAs

The spectre of regional fragmentation is haunting the negotiations on the finalisation of interim economic partnership agreements (EPAs) between the European Union (EU) and the African, Caribbean and Pacific countries. This is despite one of the stated goals of the EPAs being ‘‘regional integration’’.

CHALLENGES 2007-2008: Different Kind of Battle for Sierra Leone

Sierra Leone’s economy has, over the years, relied heavily on the mining sector in general and diamonds in particular. However, between 1991 and 2000 the country was comprehensively destroyed in a brutal civil war that engulfed the West African state.

DEVELOPMENT: UN Hails Economic Integration of Global South

The ongoing regional political squabbles in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America - over issues such as territorial borders, human rights and natural resources - are being increasingly overshadowed by intra-regional economic integration and the creation of new common markets.

CHALLENGES 2007-2008: Lowering Mexico’s Drawbridge to US Maize and Beans

On Jan. 1, the Mexican market will be thrown wide open to imports of maize, beans, powdered milk and sugar from the United States, completing a process that began 14 years ago, in which its impoverished rural sector must compete with a powerful and heavily subsidised foreign rival.

Q&A: "Innovations Know No Borders"

"I have experienced first-hand the value of cross-country learning and sharing," said Pamela Cox, World Bank regional vice president for Latin America and the Caribbean, at a meeting here commemorating U.N. Day for South-South cooperation.

ENVIRONMENT-KENYA: Turning Trash Into Cash

From carrier bags, to takeaway cutlery, to containers lining the aisles of grocery stores, plastic is found virtually everywhere in Kenya's capital, Nairobi: for better and for worse. The widget that is useful in the first instance is likely to become a polluting eyesore after it gets tossed away, as the city struggles to come to grips with recycling its plastic.

MALAWI: ”Foreign Traders Are Taking Our Jobs”

Foreigners working illegally as small-scale traders are increasingly being regarded as a threat to their local counterparts in Malawi. The outsiders are setting up businesses which, local Malawians believe, are displacing them.

TRADE-GHANA: Cocoa Industry’s Future Looking Sweet

After almost a decade of poor cocoa production during the 1980s, the Ghanaian government is upbeat about the subsequent growth in output of the product which is the country’s main export, providing more than 60 percent of foreign earnings.

ENERGY-SOUTH AFRICA: Food Security Hobbles Biofuel Strategy

Worried that it may be seen as insensitive to the food needs of Africa, the South African government, which is facing a general election in 2009, has chosen food security in framing a biofuel policy.

CLIMATE CHANGE: Measuring Bali by a Scientific Yardstick

A tiny step was taken Saturday in meeting the greatest challenge humanity has ever faced.

RIGHTS-PHILIPPINES: UN Study Gives Voice to Children in the Ranks

For decades the Philippines has been embroiled in armed strife with communist and Islamist rebel groups resulting in the deaths and displacement of thousands. But the worst victims of these conflicts have been children, says a new United Nations sponsored study.

FINANCE: Record Support, Some Quibbles for World Bank’s IDA Fund

Donors have promised the World Bank record sums to spend in the poorest countries from next year, largely overlooking concerns that the global lender uses the money for political purposes.