News headlines in March 2013, page 7

WASHINGTON, Mar 23 (IPS) - After a week of retrospectives on the tenth anniversary of Washington's ill-fated invasion of Iraq, the most compelling consisted of a retrospective of the retrospectives.

BUENOS AIRES, Mar 22 (IPS) - The new pope's choice of the name Francis, to honour the Catholic Church's patron saint of animals and the environment, has awakened the hopes of ecologists and others who are concerned about rampant consumerism and the deterioration of the planet.

LIMA, Mar 22 (IPS) - The Peruvian legislature is investigating a contract with an Israeli company, entered into by the previous government for advising and training the military, after audit bodies found irregularities in how it was signed.

WASHINGTON, Mar 22 (IPS) - The United States' main foreign assistance agency is getting widespread plaudits for new data on a series of internal reforms aimed at aid improvement, but some development experts are pointing to a persistent opaqueness from the agency.

WASHINGTON, Mar 22 (IPS) - As the Syrian uprising enters its third year, the United States and its allies are preparing to materially increase their support of the armed opposition in Syria.

QANDIL MOUNTAINS, Iraq, Mar 22 (IPS) - It was only seven in the morning when Mohamed Abdi spread out a rug a few metres away from an artillery crater, up in the Qandil mountains of northern Iraq. This Iraqi Kurd from Suleimaniyah, 260 kilometres northeast of Baghdad, was ready to celebrate the Newroz – the Kurdish and Persian New Year – along with his family.

MBABANE, Mar 22 (IPS) - Every day for the last four years, 52-year-old Tintfombi Msibi has had to walk past the borehole in her village of Ekuphakameni, one of the driest rural villages in southern Swaziland, to a dirty stream two kilometres away to collect drinking water.

MEXICO CITY, Mar 22 (IPS) - Two separate bills to reform Mexico's mining laws, one from the government and the other from academics and NGOs, agree on the urgent need for major changes in the rules governing the industry.

LISBON, Mar 22 (IPS) - The huge impact of the economic crisis on male employment in Portugal has led to a sharp increase in the proportion of women who have become the main breadwinners in their families. But that has not translated into progress towards equality.

UXBRIDGE, Canada, Mar 22 (IPS) - How much water does it take to turn on a light? It took 10,000 litres to make your jeans. Another three big bathtubs of water was needed for your two-eggs-toast-coffee breakfast this morning.