News headlines in July 2012, page 7

, Jul 25 (IPS) - At a time when big grocery stores like Trader Joe's and Whole Foods are attracting scores of hungry customers, many local family-run farms are fighting to keep afloat.

LAHORE, Jul 25 (IPS) - At a time when spiraling input costs and perennial shortages of irrigation water are breaking countless farmers’ backs, a small village community on the outskirts of Lahore appears to have been spared.

DOHA, Qatar, Jul 25 (IPS) - (Al Jazeera) - Activists say thousands of troops have been sent to Syria’s second city, Aleppo, as clashes were reported in the city for the sixth consecutive day.

PARIS, Jul 25 (IPS) - European media, political leaders, and the citizenry are bashing bankers again, overtly calling them at best accomplices of numerous illegal activities, at worst downright criminals.

WASHINGTON, Jul 25 (IPS) - Reprising the neo-conservative rhetoric of the primary election campaign, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney Tuesday harshly criticised Barack Obama's foreign policy but offered few clues as to specific changes he would make if he defeats the president in November.

WASHINGTON, Jul 24 (IPS) - Two months after a free-trade agreement between the United States and Colombia went into effect, workers and activists are warning that U.S.-stipulated labour reforms have not been fully implemented and have yet to result in promised improvements in the lives of workers.

BAKU, Jul 24 (IPS) - As two young Azeri poets enter their 11th week in detention in Iran, efforts to secure their release are not losing steam, nor are political tensions between the two countries.

JUAREZ, Mexico, Jul 24 (IPS) - The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and other international security forces "don't fight drug traffickers", a spokesman for the Chihuahua state government in northern Mexico has told Al Jazeera, instead "they try to manage the drug trade".

WASHINGTON, Jul 24 (IPS) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's claim Sunday of absolutely reliable intelligence linking Hezbollah to the bombing in Burgas, Bulgaria last week was apparently aimed at supporting his government’s determination to get the EU to declare Hezbollah a terrorist organisation.

MONTEVIDEO, Jul 24 (IPS) - A record number of sea turtles are turning up on Uruguayan beaches along the Atlantic Ocean and Río de la Plata this Southern hemisphere winter, suffering from cold shock and hypothermia.