News headlines in May 2013, page 23

MEXICO CITY, May 06 (IPS) - Radio Totopo was founded in February 2006 in the Pescadores neighbourhood, the oldest and poorest part of the city of Juchitán in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca. But the authorities closed it down in late March, even though Congress is debating a constitutional reform that would recognise community radio stations.

KARACHI, May 06 (IPS) - Twenty-five-year-old Syed Hasan, a doctor practicing in a private hospital in Lahore, plans to spend most of May 11, Pakistan's long-awaited Election Day, in bed.

ULAANBAATAR, Mongolia, May 06 (IPS) - Genghis Khan knew about hard times. The founder of the Mongol Empire, which spanned most of Eurasia until roughly 1227, Genghis and his clan had to survive on their wits and natural surroundings, often resorting to meals of "green leafy things" when food was scarce.

CAPE TOWN, South Africa, May 06 (IPS) - "If I don't have my pills, I don't know what will happen. I will probably get sick again, very sick. Maybe I will die this time," says Xoliswa Mbana* as she readies her four young children for school in the impoverished informal settlement of Masiphumelele, in Cape Town, South Africa.

CLAY CROSS, Britain, May 05 (IPS) - The social consequences of austerity economics have been most visible in Europe's southern periphery. In the UK, the coalition government has brought in sharp cutbacks in welfare state provision in the name of dealing with the financial crisis. Their impact is becoming increasingly visible.

PRAGUE, May 04 (IPS) - As the Czech government comes under fire for apparently backtracking on commitments to inclusive education, Roma children and teenagers continue to be systematically shut out of Eastern Europe's mainstream education system.

WASHINGTON, May 04 (IPS) - Despite renewed pressure by hawks in Congress and the media, U.S. President Barack Obama appears determined to avoid sharply escalating U.S. involvement in the ongoing civil war in Syria.

WASHINGTON, May 04 (IPS) - A United Nations expert group is warning that too many gaps remain in implementing new safeguards among businesses based in the United States, both in terms of their domestic and international operations, to ensure the protection of human rights of workers and communities affected by those operations.

WASHINGTON, May 03 (IPS) - Twenty of the world's most fragile states, including those currently affected by conflict, have achieved one or more of the development targets outlined under the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the World Bank said this week.

WASHINGTON, May 03 (IPS) - Worker advocacy groups here are calling on some of the most high-profile U.S.-based clothing companies to make drastic reforms to their international labour practices in the wake of the factory collapse that killed more than 420 workers in Dhaka last week.