News headlines in April 2013, page 11

WASHINGTON, Apr 17 (IPS) - Public debate here over the military prison at Guantanamo Bay heated up again following Monday's surprise publication of a highly charged article by an inmate at the prison, one of dozens currently engaged in a months-long hunger strike over detainees' "indefinite detention".

CARACAS, Apr 16 (IPS) - Noisy pot-banging protests broke out in Venezuela's cities to demand a recount of the votes from Sunday's presidential elections, which leftwing candidate Nicolás Maduro won. Several people have been killed in violent incidents.

WASHINGTON, Apr 16 (IPS) - Former U.S. Republican Congressman Asa Hutchinson hopes his country can redeem itself after torturing an unknown but certainly large number of detainees.

ELDORADO DOS CARAJÁS, Brazil, Apr 16 (IPS) - The order came from the office of the governor of the northern Brazilian state of Pará, Almir Gabriel, at 5:00 PM on Apr. 17, 1996: clear route PA-150, the epicentre of social protests for land reform, at any cost.

WASHINGTON, Apr 16 (IPS) - Two new reports, put out by a cross-section of U.S. environmental and public interest groups, are attacking central rationales for the construction of a major new Canada-U.S. oil pipeline proposal, which has emerged as an emblematic cause for green groups who have angrily denounced a U.S. government approvals process.

NEW YORK, Apr 16 (IPS) - Over one million kgs of nuclear waste sit in limbo on the banks of the Hudson River, in dry cask storage units and spent fuel pools just 60 kms north of New York City, according to environmental organisations.  

MARABÁ, Brazil, Apr 16 (IPS) - Toiling beneath a blazing sun in the humid heat of the Amazon, Waldemar dos Santos, 60, tends the community garden he shares with other landless peasant farmers in the Brazilian state of Pará, as they wait for agrarian reform to provide them with the opportunity for a better life.

BUENOS AIRES, Apr 16 (IPS) - Gated residential communities on the Paraná Delta have sprawled out of control in recent years, and are plugging up the local ecosystem and preventing the natural runoff of water that cushions the impact of floods in a vast area near the Argentine capital.

PORT-LOUIS, Apr 16 (IPS) - Mauritius may be one of the best-prepared countries in the world when it comes to cyclones, but recent heavy rains and flooding due to climate change have brought the country's readiness for coping with increased rainfall into question. 

UNITED NATIONS, Apr 16 (IPS) - The Global Education First Initiative stands at the forefront of this week's Learning Ministerial Meetings in Washington, D.C., underscoring the importance of education in the development of the global economy.