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

MIDEAST: Palestinians Rebuild With Mud
By Eva Bartlett
RAFAH (IPS) – Jihad el-Shaar is pleased with his mud-brick house in the Moraj district of Gaza. The 80-square metre home is a basic one-storey, two-bedroom design, with a small kitchen, bathroom and sitting room, made mostly with mud and straw.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=46751

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POLITICS-US: Officials Admit Pakistanis Reject U.S. Priorities
Analysis by Gareth Porter*
WASHINGTON (IPS) – The advances of the Taliban insurgents beyond the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) in recent weeks and the failure of the Pakistani military to counter them have brought a rare moment of truth for top national security officials of the Barack Obama administration.
ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=46762

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CHINA: New Border Dispute Body at Time of Growing Tensions
By Antoaneta Bezlova
BEIJING (IPS) – Beijing has confirmed that its more assertive stance in recent territorial spats with its neighbours is a prelude to a more forceful projection of China?s rising military and diplomatic clout in the region and beyond.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=46755

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BRAZIL: Guaraní Suffering Breakdown of Culture, Suicides
By Fabiana Frayssinet
RIO DE JANEIRO (IPS) – One young indigenous person commits suicide every 10 days on average in the centre-west Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul. Blamed on the lack of land and opportunities, the proportions of this tragedy have drawn the attention of local and foreign experts.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=46756

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MIDEAST: Environment Emerges as a Major Casualty
By Erin Cunningham*
GAZA CITY (IPS/IFEJ) – Countless fruit groves across the Gaza Strip are now gone, entire farms bulldozed. The remains of thousands of destroyed homes emit toxic asbestos, while dilapidated infrastructure dumps raw sewage into the Mediterranean Sea. An already deepening environmental crisis in the besieged Gaza Strip has been further compounded by the recent war.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=46709

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POLITICS-INDIA: Criminalisation Deters Women Candidates
By Ranjit Devraj
NEW DELHI (IPS) – While India’s major political parties are pledged to increase the space for women in the electoral process, a major deterrent to female participation is the steady criminalisation of politics in this country.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=46750

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RIGHTS-SOUTH AFRICA: Khumbula Ekhaya (Remember Your Home)
Mandisi Majavu
CAPE TOWN (IPS) – With South Africa's new president, Jacob Zuma, being inaugurated in a 9 million dollar extravaganza today, most of the country's leaders are likely to still be recovering from the party by the time the sun rises on May 11.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=46784

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HEALTH: Chernobyl Kids Keep Arriving in Cuba
By Patricia Grogg*
HAVANA (IPS/IFEJ) – Thousands of kilometres from Ukraine, where the worst nuclear accident in history occurred 23 years ago, the sun and fresh air of a Cuban beach provide therapy for Ukrainian children, who continue to be born with problems stemming from the disaster.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=46754

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RIGHTS-US: Women Migrants Describe Abuse in County Jails
By Valeria Fernández
PHOENIX, Arizona (IPS) – Broken arms, dislocated jaws, intimidation and vulgarities are part of the daily routine immigrant woman experience in Arizona’s Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO) jails, human and civil rights organisations charge.
ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=46726

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RIGHTS-SIERRA LEONE: Child Miners: Legacy of Conflict
By Lansana Fofana
FREETOWN (IPS) – Since the end of the civil war seven years ago, the Sierra Leonean authorities and child welfare agencies have been battling to remove children from the diamond-mining fields, a trend which began at the height of the conflict, when children were abducted by rebel forces and coerced to work in the mines.
ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=46765

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