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

DEVELOPMENT: Investment in Agriculture Falls Alarmingly
By Sanjay Suri
LONDON, Jun 30 (IPS) – The G8 leaders meeting early July must address a crisis resulting from a sharp decline in investment in agriculture, Oxfam demands in a new study.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=47435

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POLITICS: U.S. Uses False Taliban Aid Charge to Pressure Iran
By Gareth Porter*
WASHINGTON, Jul 2 (IPS) – The Barack Obama administration has given new prominence to a Bush administration charge that Iran is providing military training and assistance to the Taliban in Afghanistan, for which no evidence has ever been produced, and which has been discredited by data obtained by IPS from the Pentagon itself.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=47504

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US-HONDURAS: Dictatorships and Double Standards Revisited
Analysis by Daniel Luban and Jim Lobe*
WASHINGTON, Jul 1 (IPS) – When the Honduran military deposed President Manuel Zelaya on Sunday, in an incident that stirred memories of Cold War military coups in Latin America, it also seems to have caused at least some foreign policy commentators here to revert to positions reminiscent of the Cold War.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=47485

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IRAN: Picnicking Outside Evin Prison
By Sara Farhang
TEHRAN, Jul 2 (IPS) – Outside the gates of Tehran’s notorious Evin prison, hundreds wait impatiently – some with blankets spread out in the parking lot on the street below, making time for dinner.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=47511

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CLIMATE CHANGE: Europe Feels the U.S. Sneeze
By Matthew Berger
LONDON, Jun 30 (IPS) – Governments and interest groups around the world followed the U.S. House of Representatives’ vote Friday on the first U.S. policy to limit the country’s greenhouse gas emissions. They were especially interested in Europe, where a system similar to the bill’s cap-and-trade scheme already exists and where EU countries agreed last December to tough emissions targets.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=47430

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MIDEAST: Nobel Laureate ‘Abducted’ by Israeli Navy
By Mel Frykberg
RAMALLAH, Jul 1 (IPS) – Twenty-one international peace activists were seized by Israeli naval frigates in international waters Tuesday as their boat ‘The Spirit of Humanity’ tried to carry humanitarian aid to Gaza.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=47486

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AGRICULTURE: Biotechnology: Africa Must Not Be Left Behind
By Wambi Michael
KAMPALA, Jul 3 (IPS) – Africa must embrace agricultural biotechnology or risk being excluded from a major technological revolution that has had increased food production in the Europe, North America and Asia.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=47524

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PERU: Petroleum Sullies the Amazon
By Milagros Salazar*
BAGUA, Peru, Jul 3 (IPS/IFEJ) – “Now the fish are going to disappear,” said Luis Umpunchi, an Awajún Indian, one of about 20 people gathered around a broken oil pipeline in the Jayais community, in the northern Peruvian province of Amazonas.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=47525

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Q&A: “The Elites Are Like a Huge Elephant Sitting on Haiti”
Michael Deibert interviews Haitian Prime Minister MICHÈLE PIERRE-LOUIS
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Jul 3 (IPS) – Haitian Prime Minister Michèle Pierre-Louis assumed office in September 2008. Born in the southern city of Jérémie in 1947, she left Haiti with her family in 1964 following a pogrom by dictator François Duvalier against his perceived enemies in her town.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=47515

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RUSSIA: Chechen Civilians Face Collective Punishment
By Marina Litvinsky
WASHINGTON, Jul 2 (IPS) – Russian federal and Chechen authorities should immediately put a stop to home burnings and other collective punishment practices against families of alleged insurgents in Chechnya, said a report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) released Thursday.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=47501

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