Climate : Resounding call to speed up implementation of PA obligations (PRIV)
(Evelyn Teh, Katowice)
The official opening ceremony of the climat e talks held on 3 Dec. in Katowice, Poland, heard a resounding call for Parti es to take necessary actions in operationalising and fulfilling the Paris Agreeme nt (PA) obligations.

Climate : No issue should be left behind in package of decisions, say South (PRIV)
(Prerna Bomzan and Meena Raman, Katowice)
At the launch of the year-end climate talks on 2 Dec. in Katowice, Poland, under the UNFCCC, the Kyoto Protocol (KP) and the Paris Agreement (PA), developing countries unde r the G77 and China called for a package of decisions that "leaves no issue b ehind".

Opinion : Limiting climate change to 1.5C is not impossible (PRIV)
(IPS, New York)
When governments set a target in December 2015 of limiting global warming to well below 2 degrees C above pre-industrial levels while pursuing efforts to hold it at 1.5 degrees C, t hey invited the IPCC to prepare a report to provide information on this Goal.

Latin America : Legal weapons have failed to curb femicides (PRIV)
(IPS, La Plata)
Left blind by a beat ing from her ex-husband, Susana Gomez barely managed to avoid joining the list of nearly 2,800 femicides committed annually in Latin America, but her case sh ows why public policies and laws are far from curtailing gender-based violence in the region.

Rights : Migrants send record amounts home, but overall poverty prevails (PRIV)
(IPS, Brussels)
At the end of this year, migrants wi ll have sent 466 billion dollars to family and friends in their countries of o rigin.