By Ronald Joshua

NEW YORK | BAMAKO (IDN) – Fatou Dembele is a farmer in landlocked Mali, where half of the population engaged in agriculture are women. Agriculture is a key sector to lift women out of poverty. But the increasing degradation of land and natural resources caused by climate change is making women more vulnerable.

Therefore when Dembele’s plants first started dying, she thought the plot of land was ruined, and her livelihood was at risk. “We thought the land was sick. We didn’t know that there were live parasites that attacked the roots of the plants and could kill them,” says Dembele. (P50) FRENCH｜INDONESIAN | ITALIAN | JAPANESE TEXT VERSION PDF | PORTUGUESE | SPANISH | SWAHILI | TURKISH
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By Kalinga Seneviratne

KHAOSAN, Bangkok (IDN) – When people talk about sustainable development there is rarely any mention of the many street vendors who make a living on streets in Thailand, as across the rest of Asia.

Even attempts to stop them doing business – like the unsuccessful year-long attempt by the governor of Bangkok to clean the city’s streets of street vendors – passes unnoticed in the media.

“Street vending tends to attract tourists to Bangkok, it is part of Thai lifestyle and tourists want to experience that,” says Pattama Vilailert, a tourism consultant. “Some tourists come to Thailand (especially) to taste reasonable street food.” (P46) INDONESIAN | JAPANESE TEXT VERSION PDF | TAGALOG | THAI
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By Kalinga Seneviratne

This article is the 20th in a series of joint productions of Lotus News Features and IDN-InDepthNews, flagship of the International Press Syndicate.

CHANTHABURI, Thailand (IDN) – Thai farmers are going back to basics under a “Smart Farms” formula supported by modern information communication technology (ICT) integrated into a Buddhist concept of ‘sufficiency economy’ to make the kingdom’s lifeblood – agriculture and its small-scale farmers – sustainable into the foreseeable future.

“Some farmers use chemical fertiliser to get more fruits [from their trees] (but) their trunks die in three to five years. We use organic fertiliser here and our trunks will last for 30 years” said farmer Sittipong Yanaso, speaking to IDN at his lush multi-cropping durian plantation here. (P44) CHINESE TEXT VERSION PDF | HINDI | JAPANESE TEXT VERSION PDF | TAGALOG | THAI
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By J C Suresh

TORONTO (IDN) – More than one in every eight Americans, numbering 40 million, equal to 12.7 % of the population, are living in poverty, and almost half of those – 18.5 million – in abysmal poverty, according to a new report.

Though the United States is one of the world’s richest, most powerful and technologically innovative countries, “neither its wealth nor its power nor its technology is being harnessed to address the situation,” stresses Professor Philip Alston, United Nations Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights in his statement on a two-week visit to the USA.

Alston, an international law scholar and human rights practitioner, is John Norton Pomeroy Professor of Law at New York University School of Law, and co-Chair of the law school’s Center for Human Rights and Global Justice. (P39) JAPANESE TEXT VERSION PDF | KOREAN TEXT VERSION PDF | SPANISH
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By Jeffrey Moyo

HARARE (IDN) – At one stage in her life, she was a top accountant with the National Railways of Zimbabwe. Now, domiciled in Epworth, a crowded informal settlement in south-eastern Harare Province, 25 kilometres outside Harare, the Zimbabwean capital, hers has turned out to be a riches-to-rags tale.

Shuvai Chikoto, a 48-year-old mother of three who was widowed five years ago, is just one of millions of other Southern African urban dwellers who have plunged into poverty over the years – and she is not particularly impressed that the United Nations has set the goal of ending poverty in all its forms everywhere within the next 13 years. (P20) ｜JAPANESE TEXT VERSION PDF | KOREAN TEXT VERSION PDF
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