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

POLITICS: Realities Collide at Halifax “War Conference”
By Anthony Fenton
HALIFAX, Canada (IPS) – While the world’s top military elites gather inside a fortified hotel to discuss NATO’s future, protesters question the organisation’s legitimacy, secrecy, and the lack of democratic debate about the increasingly unpopular war in Afghanistan.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=49370

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Q&A: Maternal Mortality Rates ‘One of the Saddest Cases’ in Asia
Marwaan Macan-Markarinterviews NOELEEN HEYZER, U.N. under-secretary general and head of UNESCAP
BANGKOK (IPS) -Nearly 15 years after a landmark international conference to advance the rightsand freedoms of women, the picture in the Asia-Pacific region is mixed, says aleading women’s rights advocate and senior United Nations official.
ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=49348

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DR CONGO: Urban Water Supply Needs Attention
By Emmanuel Chaco
KINSHASA (IPS) – Kinshasa’s population needs an estimated 700,000 cubic metres of water per day. The Régie de distribution des eaux (REGIDESO) produces only 425,000 cubic metres – vast neighbourhoods like Kitokimosi and Mpasa receive almost none of this water.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=49295

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CHILE: Mapuche Detainees Say They Were Framed
By Daniela Estrada
TEMUCO, Chile (IPS) – “This lie has got to end,” said a sobbing Luisa Marilef, a 55-year-old Mapuche woman who says her son’s arrest and prosecution under Chile’s anti-terrorism law was part of a set-up by the police and prosecutors.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=49356

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HAITI: Shooting Incident Sparks Anger at U.N. Troops
By Ansel Herz
PORT-AU-PRINCE (IPS) – Under a beating sun in the grassy field where two U.N. helicopters landed in Grand Goave last week, 19-year-old Benson Blanc moved his hands as if rapid-firing a gun into the ground in front of him and made a “tok-tok-tok-tok” sound. This is how the soldiers opened fire, he said.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=49353

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Q&A: Glass Half-full 15 Years After ICPD
Hilmi Toros interviews PURNIMA MANE, Deputy Executive Director of UNFPA
ISTANBUL (IPS) – Fifteen years after the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), the glass is half full, according to Purnima Mane, deputy executive director of the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA). And not much better for the U.N. Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Violence Against Women (CEDAW) after 30 years.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=49375

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INDIA: A Famed Region’s Triple Whammy of Environmental Bane
By Athar Parvaiz
LADAKH, India (IPS) – The combined impact of tourism, climate change and changing lifestylein this internationally renowned adventure haven has raised serious concernsamong environmental groups.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=49316

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PERU: Fighting Hunger with Native Crops
By Milagros Salazar
PAUCARÁ, Peru (IPS) – As if he were showing off a treasure, Dionicio Sarmiento holds up his seed potatoes with a smile. “Look how nice they are, all ready to plant. It’ll be a good harvest,” says the peasant farmer from Huancavelica, Peru’s poorest province, where most of the population depends on subsistence farming.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=49366

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KOSOVO: Ten Years On, Forensics Continues to ID Missing
By Apostolis Fotiadis
PRISTINA (IPS) – Pictures of missing people have been hanging for years next to the gate to the fence surrounding Kosovo?s parliament. Some of them have been there for so long that the features of the faces can hardly be seen anymore – a good example of how slow and painful the process of discovering the fate of the missing is.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=49335

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AFRICA: Growing Use of Cellphones for Family Planning
By Susan Anyangu
KAMPALA (IPS) – The growth of cellphone use, particularly in the developing world, is providing health experts with a new channel of communication to provide family planning information.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=49343

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DON’T MISS IPS EXCLUSIVE COVERAGE OF WOMEN IN THE NEWS.

Elections, health, education, armed conflicts, corruption, laws, trade, climate change, the global financial and food crises, and natural disasters – IPS covers these frontline issues asking an often forgotten question: What does it mean for women and girls?
www.ipsnews.net/new_focus/women/index.asp

EARTH ALERT: TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE FOR COPENHAGEN?

Read about the forces behind climate change – but also about growing citizen awareness and new climate policies towards sustainable development.

The 15th Conference of Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) is set to take place in Copenhagen from Dec. 7 to 18. World leaders are expected to try to agree on a successor to the Kyoto Protocol. IPS brings you the latest news from the ‘frontline’ of environment.
Webpage www.ipsnews.net/climate_change/index.asp
Newsletter ipsnews.net/_newsletter/environment.asp

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