Here are some of IPS’s most-read stories of the past week — and stories you shouldn’t go without reading:

Democrats Vow to Unite and Conquer
Bankole Thompson
DENVER – With Sen. Barack Obama’s formal anointing as the first African American presidential nominee of a major political party in U.S. history, delegates to the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver say Obama can win in November on universal issues like the economy and health care.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=43709

For more IPS coverage of U.S. Elections –
www.ipsnews.net/new_focus/us_elections2008/index.asp

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ISRAEL: Where the Slave Trade Heads
Mel Frykberg
JERUSALEM – Israel continues to be a favourite destination for the trafficking of women for the sex industry, also known as the white slave trade, and for a form of modern day slavery where migrant labourers from developing countries are exploited.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=43723

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ICELAND: Filling Up on Hydrogen
Lowana Veal
REYKJAVIK – Earlier this year, the Icelandic whale-watching boat Elding was fitted with a hydrogen-powered generator that fuels its lighting system, electric equipment and navigation machinery. It is the first of its kind in the world.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=43704

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Muslim Charities Negotiate a Minefield
William Fisher
NEW YORK – As Muslims begin one of their most important holidays — the month of Ramadan — charitable organisations serving the American Muslim community are taking what some observers believe is a desperate last step to keep the U.S. government from shutting them down.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=43730

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CAMBODIA: Mass Evictions May Follow Lake Grab
Andrew Nette
PHNOM PENH – A plan to redevelop Phnom Penh’s largest remaining natural lake into a residential and shopping precinct has ignited a storm of protests and claims that it could result in the largest eviction in Cambodia’s post-war history.
ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=43720

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SRI LANKA: ‘Animal Tracks’ Lead Villagers Out of Poverty
Feizal Samath
KOULARA – An impoverished village in southern Sri Lanka is slowly pulling out of poverty by churning out terra cotta moulds of animal footprints for tea connoisseurs all over the world.
ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=43714

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PARAGUAY: President Apologises to Victims of Dictatorship
David Vargas
ASUNCIÓN – Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo apologised Thursday in the name of the state to the victims of human rights violations committed by the 1954-1989 dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=43718

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ETHIOPIA: Choosing Among One’s Own Amid Food Crisis
Nicholas Benequista
ADDIS ABABA – The global food crisis has forced families to make grievous choices. When Mulu Baboche travelled from the Ethiopian capital to visit her home town in the drought-stricken southern countryside, she found her brother weakened, his animals emaciated and his nine children wilting from hunger. ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=43663

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Amazon Increasingly Oily
Milagros Salazar
LIMA – More than 180 oil and natural gas fields extend across the western Amazon, shared by five South American countries and threatening biodiversity and indigenous lands, warns a study by U.S.-based organisations.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=43707

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Q&A: Interview with Jacqueline Klopp, Columbia University
NAIROBI – The text of the Kenyan National Dialogue and Reconciliation Accord, brokered by former UN chief Kofi Annan in March this year and released to the press in full last Sunday, identifies land as one of the central issues creating “economic, social, political and environmental problems” in the country. ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=43697

Read more global news at: www.ipsnews.net/

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