News headlines in June 2013, page 16

UNITED NATIONS, Jun 13 (IPS) - With less than three years before a 2015 deadline, the developing world is largely expected to miss one of the U.N.'s key Millennium Development Goals (MDGs): halving the number of people living in extreme poverty and hunger.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Jun 13 (IPS) - Though the constant hum of unmanned aerial vehicles flying overhead makes a strong case for staying indoors, residents of Pakistan's North Waziristan Agency are emerging in droves from their humble homes, some no bigger than huts constructed from mud and stones.

MEXICO CITY, Jun 13 (IPS) - "We have to understand that information, above all else, is a social service. If we lose sight of that dimension we begin to regulate it as merchandise, but the state has many other obligations, such as to guarantee freedom," said Frank La Rue.

NAIROBI, Jun 13 (IPS) - Akech B. loved to study and dreamed of becoming a nurse. But when she was 14, her uncle who was raising her forced her to leave school to marry a man Akech described as old and gray-haired. The man paid 75 cows as dowry for Akech. He was already married to another woman with whom he had several children. 

Jun 13 (IPS) - Children around the world may complain about attending school and doing their homework, but not 14-year-old Raya*. For two years she was forced by her illiterate parents to spend every day, rain or shine, selling sugar cane from the family garden to customers on the streets of Entebbe, about 35 km outside the Ugandan capital, Kampala.

UNITED NATIONS, Jun 13 (IPS) - Edward Snowden, 29, left behind a comfortable lifestyle in Hawaii as a private contractor for the Pentagon's National Security Agency (NSA) because he did not want to help create an "architecture for repression" for fellow citizens.

WASHINGTON, Jun 13 (IPS) - Deepening security ties between East Asian nations offer substantial benefits to the United States as it "rebalances" its military forces towards the Asia-Pacific region, so long as the move is not perceived as a U.S.-led effort to contain China, according to a new report by a think tank close to the administration of President Barack Obama.

ST. JOHN'S, Antigua, Jun 12 (IPS) - With their islands devoid of rivers or streams, farmers in Antigua and Barbuda have been building dams and ponds for centuries, harvesting rainwater to irrigate their crops and provide drinking water for their livestock.

HONOLULU, Hawaii, Jun 12 (IPS) - The decision by the reformist candidate Mohammadreza Aref to withdraw his candidacy -- and in effect open the path for the centrist Hassan Rowhani to become the unified candidate of both the centrists and reformists -- is an important development in Iranian politics.

TEHRAN, Iran, Jun 12 (IPS) - Talking to ordinary people in Neishabour and Tehran about Iran's June 14 presidential election, economic issues seem foremost on their minds. But whom they will vote for is based on vague promises to pull the economy out of its deep crisis rather than well-defined economic programs.