News headlines in February 2013, page 8

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 20 (IPS) - As the 2015 deadline for the Millennium Development Goals approaches, different United Nations agencies are beginning to discuss what the post-2015 Development Agenda will encompass.

UXBRIDGE, Canada, Feb 20 (IPS) - Canada's police and security agencies think citizens concerned about the environment are threats to national security, and some are under surveillance, documents reveal.

BERLIN, Feb 20 (IPS) - Whenever hot water from the kitchen tap or the bathroom shower goes down the plughole, a substantial amount of heat energy goes with it. In some German buildings this is being recovered and used to heat buildings in the winter and run air conditioning systems in the summer, representing a real energy-saver.

WASHINGTON, Feb 20 (IPS) - A lack of Israeli pressure for the U.S. to intervene and Israel's ability to go after sensitive targets in Syria on its own are factors in the Barack Obama administration's reluctance to get more deeply involved in the Syrian civil war.

LIVERPOOL, Feb 20 (IPS) - ­That Liverpool was once the uncontested centre of the world slave trade, accounting for 40 percent, is well documented in the International Slavery Museum in the port where slave ships.

BELGRADE, Feb 20 (IPS) - More than 10,000 people living in the coastal Adriatic town Dubrovnik have done what many others in the region could never. They are holding a referendum on a controversial development project that they believe endangers their city.

PARIS, Feb 20 (IPS) - Despite uncertainty and the ongoing conflict, Mali will work to rebuild and safeguard its cultural heritage, says the West African country's minister of culture Bruno Maïga.

COLOMBO, Feb 20 (IPS) - It has now become an annual affair. When the Geneva based UN Human Rights Council readies itself for the first of its annual regular sessions in February, the government in Sri Lanka gets ready to ward off yet another attempt to scrutinise its rights record.

DURBAN, South Africa, Feb 20 (IPS) - On Tuesday, Feb. 19, famous South African paralympian Oscar Pistorius was charged with premeditated murder, with prosecutors arguing the athlete had "put on his prosthetic legs, walked seven metres and fired four shots through a locked bathroom door," killing his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp on Valentine's Day.

WASHINGTON, Feb 20 (IPS) - Challenging what has become conventional wisdom here, a new report released here Tuesday by an influential think tank argues that Iran's neighbours - Saudi Arabia in particular - are unlikely to pursue nuclear weapons if Iran obtains one.