News headlines in April 2013, page 19

MEXICO CITY, Apr 05 (IPS) - The Mexican government is considering using troops to collect socioeconomic data from beneficiaries of the social programmes comprising the National Crusade Against Hunger, but civil society organisations are opposed to the idea because of the serious human rights accusations faced by the military in the war on drugs.

Apr 05 (IPS) - Following the devastating 2010 earthquake in Haiti, more than a billion dollars of U.S. aid money has gone to that country with little transparency or accountability on how the money is being used, according to new data released by a watchdog group here.

MARABÁ, Brazil, Apr 05 (IPS) - Peasants and human rights defenders in Brazil are indignant over the acquittal of the man accused of ordering the May 2011 murders of two prominent Amazon activists, José Cláudio Ribeiro da Silva and his wife Maria do Espírito Santo.

UNITED NATIONS, Apr 05 (IPS) - The 132-member Group of 77, the largest single coalition of developing nations, is challenging the longstanding prerogative of successive U.N. secretaries-general to appoint "special envoys" whose services are deemed gratis - and who are on nominal "one-dollar-a-year" employment contracts.

TEHRAN, Apr 05 (IPS) - With just over two months before the Jun. 14 presidential election, Iranians remain unclear about which candidates will be approved by the Guardian Council to compete, let alone who has the best chance of winning.

PARIS, Apr 05 (IPS) - With the level of Western aid to the world's poorest countries declining amid the global financial crisis, economists are calling for "innovative" means of development that range from proper taxation of multinationals to laws that ensure gender equality.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Apr 05 (IPS) - The Taliban may have placed a ban on theatre, but women in Pakistan's northern provinces won't allow the threat of the militants' reprisals to keep them off the stage.

Apr 05 (IPS) - Susan Sithole* is 14 and should be in grade nine or Form Two, according to Zimbabwe's education system, learning her lessons in Mathematics, English and other subjects.

WASHINGTON, Apr 05 (IPS) - While the tenth anniversary last month of Washington's invasion of Iraq provoked overwhelmingly negative reviews of the adventure except among its most die-hard neo-conservative proponents, a more recent - albeit far less dramatic and costly - intervention has faded almost completely from public notice.