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

THAILAND: After ASEAN Summit Fiasco, Summer of Discontent Looms
Analysis by Marwaan Macan-Markar
BANGKOK (IPS) – The dramatic scenes that unfolded at a regional summit forcing its cancellation Apr. 11 point to a disturbing possibility that this kingdom is heading for a long period of turmoil – pitting the conservative political establishment against the rage of the urban and provincial poor.
ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=46472

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US: Counterinsurgency Back In Vogue?
Analysis by Daniel Luban*
WASHINGTON (IPS) – As the U.S. prepares to reduce its military presence in Iraq while intensifying its war effort in Afghanistan, hawks within both the Republican and Democratic parties have come increasingly to believe that counterinsurgency (COIN) doctrine offers a solution to the central security challenges Washington will face in the 21st century.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=46463

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TRADE: “EPAs Will Prevent African States From Achieving MDGs”
By Stanley Kwenda
JOHANNESBURG (IPS) – The economic partnerships agreements (EPAs) will push African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries ?deeper? into poverty and negatively affect the livelihoods of people living in ACP countries. These trade deals ?will prevent? African countries from achieving the United Nations? millennium development goals (MDGs).
ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=46464

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IRAQ: Virtual Therapy Treats Real Agony
By Julio Godoy
BERLIN (IPS) “Oh, dear Lord, what I am going through,” ‘N’, a 25-year-old Iraqi from Baghdad wrote several months ago. “Am I going to see my family again? Sometimes, I even see my own dead body, lying somewhere. And I imagine the pain my death would cause to the people I love the most.”
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=46461

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PERU: Where the Poor Pay More for Water
By Ángel Páez
LOMAS DE MANCHAY, Peru (IPS) – In Lomas de Manchay, an area of slum-covered hills outside of the Peruvian capital that is home to 50,000 people, mainly poor indigenous migrants from the highlands, clean water is worth gold ? almost literally. Local residents of the shantytown pay 3.22 dollars per cubic metre of water, compared to just 45 cents of a dollar that is paid a few blocks away, across the main avenue, in Rinconada del Lago, one of Lima?s most exclusive neighbourhoods.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=46451

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DEVELOPMENT: U.N. Triples Allotment for Population
By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS (IPS) – The 1994 landmark International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), held in the Egyptian capital of Cairo, fixed a target of 20.5 billion dollars for investments in population programmes worldwide for the year 2010.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=46443

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NEPAL: Displaced Choose Urban Homelessness Over Rural Insecurity
By Renu Kshetry
KATHMANDU (IPS) – Bishnu Maya Dahal, 51, dreams of going back to her village in eastern Nepal. The family fled to Kathmandu in 2001 after her husband, a member of the then ruling Nepali Congress was brutally beaten by Maoist rebels for daring to defy a ban and run in village-level elections in 2001.
ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=46449

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MIDEAST: Lost in the Buffer Zone
By Eva Bartlett*
KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza (IPS) “They’re always shooting at us. Every day they shoot at us,? says Alaa Samour (19), pulling aside his shirt to show a scar on his shoulder. Samour said he was shot on Dec. 28 last year by Israeli soldiers positioned along the border fence near New Abassan village, east of Khan Younis in the south of the Gaza Strip.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=46409

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HEALTH-CUBA: HIV-Positive Want Respect, Not Tolerance
By Dalia Acosta
HAVANA (IPS) – Over 20 years after the diagnosis of the first cases of AIDS in Cuba, HIV-positive persons and those who work with them or are involved in the issue on the island are attempting to drop the use of terms like tolerance and acceptance, and speak instead of respect.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=46444

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GENDER-ZIMBABWE: Religion and Poverty Force Girls into Early Marriages
By Phyllis Kachere
HARARE (IPS) – While her peers get ready to go to school each morning, 14-year-old Matipedza (not her real name) of Marange district in Manicaland has to stay behind to prepare breakfast for her 67-year-old husband.
ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=46447

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