By Kizito Makoye

DAR ES SALAAM (IDN) – Helena Magafu smiled as she held a piece of paper that recognizes her as the sole owner of a disputed farmland in her village was handed over to her, thus resolving a raging dispute with her neighbours.

“I am very happy, I don’t think anyone with ever again claim this is their land,” she said

For the past eight years the 53 year-old widow, who lives in Sanje village in the rural district of Kilombero – in Morogoro Region, south-western Tanzania – has been embroiled in a dispute with her neighbours who attempted to take 30 hectares of her family land when her husband died. (P10) JAPANESE TEXT VERSION PDF | SWAHILI
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By Ramesh Jaura

UNITED NATIONS (IDN) – Three years since the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were adopted by the UN, at first glimpse progress seems to have been made in “transforming our world” by implementing “a plan of action for people, planet and prosperity.”

But senior UN officials admit that a closer look at what little has been achieved and the gargantuan tasks ahead to fulfil the “pledge that no one will be left behind” leave no room for complacency.

The Group of 77 (G-77), the largest intergovernmental organization of developing countries in the UN – meanwhile encompassing 134 countries –also shares such reservations. (P09) CHINESE | JAPANESE TEXT VERSION PDF | KOREAN
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Viewpoint by Fred Kuwornu*

NEW YORK (IDN) – The trafficking of human beings worldwide produces 150 billion dollars for the various mafias, of which 100 billion come from the trafficking of Africans. Every woman trafficked earns the Nigerian mafia 60,000 euro. Trafficking 10,000 in Italy results in 600 million euro a year for the mafia. No African would willingly come if they knew the truth about what awaits them in Europe.

I do not want to get into the eternal Italian civil war based on factions and not content, but as an Italian of African descent and now an immigrant in the United States, I believe the time has come to talk about and treat immigration, or rather mobility, as a problem and structural phenomenon which has various levels and not as a tool for politicking or being dragged around like the disputed children of two parents who use them as a weapon of blackmail for their divorce. (P08) HINDI…

By Jeffrey Moyo

JOHANNESBURG (IDN) – Twenty-nine year old Ruramai Gwata had no reason to celebrate the International Women’s Day observed on March 8 every year. She lay in hospital nursing her wounds following a severe assault by her husband over a domestic dispute.

While licking her wounds two months later, as the world commemorated Mother’s Day, Gwata was plagued by agonising memories of how her two children witnessed her abuse by her husband.

Jobless Gwata, though a qualified jobless teacher, is by no means a rare exception in Africa. Because of the fate of women like Gwata the continent’s bid to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 5 by accomplishing gender equality and empowering all women and girls by the year 2030, threatens to remain a pipe dream. (P05) JAPANESE TEXT VERSION PDF | SWAHILI
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By Joshua Masinde

NAIROBI (IDN) – Productive use of energy holds the key to livelihood transformation in Africa’s rural areas. Small industries could improve their production processes and efficiency if they had better access to electricity and technologies.

Without electricity, rural micro-enterprises make do with labour intensive and time-consuming manual tools, and often pass up many opportunities for value addition or product diversification.

Satisfying the need for power of commercial enterprises presents an opportunity for private sector players such as JUMEME, a Tanzanian company that develops solar-powered mini-grids to connect businesses and households in remote areas. (P04)  JAPANESE TEXT VERSION PDF | SWAHILI
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By Lowana Veal

REYKJAVIK (IDN) – Iceland has decided to spearhead publicity for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by setting up a 12-person council of young people aged between 13 and 18, under the auspices of the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO).

Over 140 young people applied for the 12 places and, according to Nilsina Larsen Einarsdottir, coordinator of the project, “all of them had many brilliant ideas, so the choice was extremely difficult.”

Einarsdottir, who works with UNICEF in Iceland as a specialist in child and youth participation, has teamed up with the PMO for the project.

Another set of young people will be recruited next year for the same purpose. (P03) ARABIC | JAPANESE TEXT VERSION PDF | TURKISH
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By Sudha Ramachandran

BANGALORE (IDN) – As another scorching summer threatened to grip India and rivers began running dry, a hectic debate ensued about the government’s Interlinking of Rivers (ILR) program to solve the country’s water problems.

Drawing attention to the water shortage and unequal distribution of water in the country, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a strong champion of the program, recently pointed out that while some rivers are in spate others are running dry. “If there is inter-linking [of rivers], the problem can be solved,” he said.

There are stark differences in the per capita availability of water in India’s river basins. According to a 2015 National Water Mission report, the average per capita availability of water in 2010 in the Ganga-Brahmaputra-Meghna system was 20,136 cubic meters compared to just 263 cubic meters in the Sabarmati basin. (P02) HINDI | JAPANESE TEXT VERSION PDF
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