News headlines in 2012, page 2

BAMAKO, Dic 28 (IPS) - In the southern Senegal village of Kael Bessel, female genital mutilation is no longer a taboo subject. Sexagenarian Fatoumata Sabaly speaks freely about female circumcision and girls' rights with her friends.

NEW DELHI, Dic 28 (IPS) - While a 23-year-old woman battles for life in a New Delhi hospital after she was gang raped and brutalised on a moving bus in India's prosperous national capital earlier this month, women across the nation say they live in constant fear of sexual assault.

WASHINGTON, Dic 27 (IPS) - Kazakhstan, an oil-rich ex-Soviet nation in Central Asia best known for voluntarily forsaking the world's fourth-largest nuclear arsenal, is carrying out an unprecedented media crackdown that will leave it virtually without any opposition newspapers for the first time in its 21-year history as an independent nation.

TARIJA, Bolivia, Dic 27 (IPS) - Due to the intense political polarisation in the Chaco region, home to Bolivia's oil and natural gas wealth, three indigenous lawmakers who entered the legislative assembly of the southern department of Tarija as representatives of their people have quickly come to wield decisive power.

UNITED NATIONS, Dic 27 (IPS) - Amidst a politically divisive debate on gun control in the United States following a rash of mass shootings, the United Nations will meet in March to finalise an Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) after nearly two decades of negotiations.

PUERTO SAAVEDRA, Chile, Dic 27 (IPS) - For more than two decades, Mapuche indigenous people in the Chilean region of Araucanía have been fighting the construction of the Ruta Costera (Coastal Highway), a megaproject initially conceived during the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship (1973-1990) which has already caused significant archeological and cultural losses and damages.

PUERTO MALDONADO, Peru, Dic 27 (IPS) - "When someone in Peru sneezes, someone in Brazil catches a cold. When a barrel of oil is produced in Ecuador, a neighbouring country ends up buying it," says prominent environmentalist Yolanda Kakabadse.

REYKJAVIK, Dic 27 (IPS) - For 18 months, a Chinese immigrant named Xing Haiou slept on a massage table in a windowless room in Reykjavik after completing his 12-hour workday.

BERLIN, Dic 27 (IPS) - A recent agreement between El Salvador and Germany, with the latter supporting two renewable energy projects that would increase installed capacity in the Central American country by 94.2 megawatts by 2013, points to a promising alliance for carbon-free energy.

KINSHASA, Dic 27 (IPS) - Despite the health risks, hundreds of families are living in a cemetery in the Congolese capital, Kinshasa. Municipal authorities seem powerless to act.