News headlines in August 2011, page 15

Though many expected the Muslim holy month of Ramadan to bring a significant boost to the beleaguered Syrian opposition movement, the past two weeks have instead brought the bloodiest government offensives to date.

Long after the wintry sun set over her patch of crops outside the Mozambican capital Angelina Jossefa keeps pulling out weeds. Much of her lettuce, carrots and beetroot died during a cruel winter, which means she has to work harder to feed her three children.

It's a sunny Gaza morning and although a work day, the beach along Sheik Rajleen has enough people on it to keep Gaza's small number of lifeguards busy and alert. From a simple, raised wooden hut, a team of three monitor the sea, periodically calling out to swimmers below to move to calmer waters.

Saraswoti Bhetwal’s terraced fields stand out in the sub-Himalayan Lamdihi village as a mosaic of shapes and colours formed by beans, bitter gourd, chilly, tomato, lady’s fingers and other crops.

Even before the recent revolution, Egypt's strategic Sinai Peninsula - inhabited mostly by restive Bedouin tribesmen - had a reputation for lawlessness. But in the months since the popular uprising that led to Mubarak's February ouster, the situation in Sinai appears more precarious than ever.

Although there is a female presidential candidate contesting Zambia's Sept. 20 general elections, her prospects are not strong. And in fact, fewer women overall are likely to be elected into public office this year, analysts say.

Nearly four years after realising her dream of changing her body into a woman's to match her transgender identity, Wendy Iriepa rode through the Cuban capital in a vintage convertible, wearing a stunning full-length white bridal gown and unfurling a rainbow flag, the symbol of the sexual diversity movement, for all to see.

Before anything else what we need today is a paradigm to diagnose and address the many grave global problems that face us all but are experienced differently in the various regions of the world. Because in Europe the crisis is more evident and is causing the suffering of tens of millions of people, the young especially, we must take it as reality, writes Roberto Savio, founder and president emeritus of the Inter Press Service (IPS) news agency.

Pakistani civilian and military leaders are insisting on an effective veto over which targets U.S. drone strikes hit, according to well-informed Pakistani military sources here.

'Dialogue is the Path' is the slogan that drew 25,000 people to this northern Colombian oil port city on the Magdalena river that has a history of social struggle. Most of the participants came from remote corners of the country where the brutality of war is experienced in daily life in ways unimagined by city dwellers.