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

U.S.: “War Comes Home” with Ft. Hood Shootings
By Dahr Jamail
PHOENIX, Arizona (IPS) – While investigators probe for a motive behind the mass shooting at the Fort Hood military base in Texas Thursday, in which an army psychiatrist is suspected of killing 13 people, military personnel at the base are in shock as the incident “brings the war home”.
ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=49173

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CLIMATE CHANGE: Dark Clouds Gathering Over Copenhagen
Analysis by Sanjay Suri
ST. ANDREWS (IPS) – It has been a bad week for the climate change summit in Copenhagen next month. During the week the last meeting in the formal round of pre- Copenhagen talks collapsed in Barcelona. Then, meeting here on the weekend, the G20 finance ministers put the seal on that failure by failing to agree a financial package.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=49182

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DEVELOPMENT: South-South Unity to Get Boost at U.N. Meet
By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS (IPS) – As the global financial crisis continues to ravage the fragile economies of the world’s poorer countries, the United Nations is hosting a high-level international conference next month to boost South-South cooperation.
ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=49123

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SRI LANKA: Gov’t, EU in Back-channel Talks Over Fate of Trade Pact
By Feizal Samath
COLOMBO (IPS) – Sri Lanka has reacted strongly to a European Commission (EC) probe on its human rights record, saying it is politically motivated.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=49184

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GUATEMALA: (Barely) Surviving on Beans and Tortillas
By Danilo Valladares
GUATEMALA CITY (IPS) – Juan Manuel Ardón’s bones jut out and his hair is dull and thin: signs of severe malnutrition. He is so weak that he can hardly walk or talk, and the doctors say his weight and stature are those of a six-year-old, rather than 15-year-old, boy.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=49133

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RIGHTS: Jailed Fishermen Await Thaw in India-Pakistan Relations
By Zofeen Ebrahim
KARACHI (IPS) – Almost 400 Indian fishermen continue to languish
in Pakistani prisons despite having completed their prison terms. Their
release has been hampered by tensions in the relations between their
country and neighbouring Pakistan.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=49130

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RIGHTS: Palestinian Women Suffer as Israel Violates CEDAW
By Mel Frykberg
RAMALLAH (IPS) – Palestinian women continue to suffer abuse and denial of basic human rights at the hands of Israeli settlers and soldiers in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=49146

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POLITICS: U.S. Seeks to Limit Warlords in Karzai Cabinet
By Gareth Porter*
WASHINGTON (IPS) – The Barack Obama administration is talking tough to Afghan President Hamid Karzai about the need for decisive action on corruption and governance reform, but its main objective is to prevent particularly corrupt and incompetent warlords from getting plum ministries as rewards for helping clinch his fraudulent reelection, IPS has learned.
ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=49170

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URUGUAY:White Concrete Block Replaces Mud, Wattle and Thatch
By Dino Cappelli
PUEBLO BARCELÓ, Uruguay (IPS) – “If it weren’t for the Mevir housing project, this would be a ghost town,” says the local shopkeeper who supplies the basic needs of the families living in this remote hamlet in the middle of nowhere in the South American country of Uruguay.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=49185

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SIERRA LEONE: New Dawn for Small Farmers?
By Mohamed Fofanah
KAMBIA DISTRICT, Sierra Leone (IPS) – They call her “Marie Nerica”, after a new breed of rice.
ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=49125

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ENVIRONMENT-AUSTRALIA: Toxic Contaminants: The Other Scourge
By Neena Bhandari
SYDNEY (IPS) – As the world focuses on the impact of climate
change, little attention is being paid to yet another environmental
bane: increasing contamination of air, water and soil.
ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=49102

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RIGHTS-MALAWI:Blame Game While Children Suffer
By Charles Mpaka
LIMBE, Malawi (IPS) – Every morning 12-year-old Thomson Genti and his seven-year-old brother, Chifundo, emerge dirty and wretched from the squalor of their hideout behind the crowded shops in the commercial town of Limbe. It is the start of a day of begging, beatings from the older street boys and insults from passers-by.
ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=49134

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