News headlines in August 2011, page 29

Norma Isela from the city of Piedras Negras in the northern Mexican state of Coahuila needs 500 dollars to expand the merchandise inventory in her business selling shoes by catalogue and to broaden her offer of clothes and accessories. So far she has managed to raise 45 percent of that amount.

The four armed robbers who gang raped her may be serving time for their crimes, but six years later justice has turned out to be a myth for Mildred Mapingure.

As the 193-member General Assembly commemorates the first anniversary of its landmark resolution pronouncing water and sanitation to be a basic human right, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon triggered a political controversy last week when he implicitly declared that even human rights have a market price.

There has been more violence in the Pakistani city of Karachi, where at least 42 people have been killed since Monday.

During the social and economic collapse of 2002-2003, the Argentine state encouraged the formation of workers' cooperatives, which helped mitigate the worst effects of the crisis, reduced hard-core unemployment, and now as independent, democratic, worker-controlled organisations are providing services to the public and private sectors.

After weeks of political wrangling over a budget proposal to settle the country's 14-trillion-dollar debt, U.S. President Barack Obama Tuesday signed into law a bill that would slash 2.1 trillion dollars from the deficit over the next decade.

With Republican-led efforts to divert funding from the reproductive health provider Planned Parenthood stumbling in Washington, the battle has moved to the states, with mixed results.

Syrian troops have again advanced in the central city of Hama, taking up new positions a day after activists said government forces killed 24 people throughout the country on the first day of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Having weathered the maelstrom that engulfed the Middle East earlier this year, Jordan's government has faced simmering unrest as protesters continue to press for political and economic reforms.

In spite of an amendment to the constitution, early general elections planned next October, and numerous social and economic reforms, the Moroccan monarchy may not survive the Arab Spring, activists say.