News headlines in February 2013, page 3

SANTIAGO, Feb 27 (IPS) - In recent years, Chile has become a source, transit, and destination hub for human trafficking victims, experts say. According to judicial authorities, forced labour and sexual exploitation are the crimes most frequently associated with this "modern form of slavery".

ATLANTA, Georgia, Feb 26 (IPS) - The U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Wednesday in a challenge to the constitutionality of key sections of the historic Voting Rights Act (VRA) of 1965.

WASHINGTON, Feb 26 (IPS) - Public health workers, activists and policymakers are stepping up a last-minute campaign to highlight the global health impact of historic, sweeping cuts to the U.S. federal budget due to go into effect Friday if Congress doesn't act.

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 26 (IPS) - When U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, a former foreign minister of South Korea, met with Psy last October, he jokingly told the wildly popular rapper that he was "a bit jealous" of him.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Feb 26 (IPS) - Angry and frustrated, but also cautiously hopeful, victims, human rights advocates and the Haitian population are waiting for Thursday, Feb. 28, the day former dictator Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier has been ordered to appear at a hearing to determine whether or not he will face charges for human rights abuses committed during his brutal 15-year regime (1971-1986).

LAHORE, Feb 26 (IPS) - Twenty-seven-year-old Muhammad Arif works at a steel re-rolling mill in Lahore, capital of Pakistan's northeastern Punjab province, producing steel ingots from scrap.

EIN FESHKA, Occupied West Bank, Feb 26 (IPS) - Two of the three main objectives of the Red Sea-Dead Sea canal project grapple with how to "save the Dead Sea" and "build a symbol of peace in the region." With Israeli-Palestinians relations and the Dead Sea at an all time low, questions arise whether the ‘Red-Dead Canal' (as it is known in environmental jargon) could save not only the hyper-saline desert lake but peace itself.

KABUL, Feb 26 (IPS) - In Afghanistan, the maternal mortality rate is on the rise; hospitals are filling up with anaemic women and girls; and in over 200 districts, high schools are devoid of even a single female pupil. These issues are not unrelated - they are all products of a grave social problem in this country of 35 million people: early child marriages.

PORT LOUIS, Feb 26 (IPS) - By Kritanand Beeharry's side are thousands of watermelon seedlings that he has grown in small pots without the use of chemical fertilisers.

As the farmer prepares his half-hectare piece of land in Soreze, near Mauritius' capital Port-Louis, to plant the two-week-old seedlings, he takes a minute to admire his achievement. "Look at these, they look solid and better grown -- it's the compost," he says.

JOHANNESBURG, Feb 26 (IPS) - As tourism between the emerging nations of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa starts to increase, South Africa is determined weld the iron while it is hot.