News headlines in June 2013, page 22

WASHINGTON/UNITED NATIONS, Jun 06 (IPS) - In a reshuffle of top foreign policy posts in his second term, U.S. President Barack Obama Wednesday announced that his controversial and blunt-spoken U.N. ambassador, Susan Rice, will replace Tom Donilon as his national security adviser.

WASHINGTON, Jun 05 (IPS) - President Barack Obama's administration and several major rights groups are reacting with frustration to the decision of an Egyptian court, announced Tuesday night, to convict 43 civil society organisations and 16 U.S. employees of illegal use of foreign funds.

ANKARA, Jun 05 (IPS) - "Peace at home, peace in the world" is the official motto of the Turkish Republic. Coined in 1931 by the republic's founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, it implies a causal relationship, but the events this week in Istanbul and dozens of other cities of Turkey suggest that causality can work in reverse order, too.

WASHINGTON, Jun 05 (IPS) - This week's relatively informal and unscripted summit between the presidents of the United States and China on a private estate in southern California is being welcomed by most analysts here as a virtually unprecedented opportunity for each side to gain a better understanding of the strategic aims of the other.

HAVANA, Jun 05 (IPS) - On a piece of paper, Jennifer Rivas draws a beach, with little girls carrying bags of trash and signs that say "Let's take care of the environment." The 10-year-old is part of an educational programme, Friends of the Bay, that involves 322 schools in the Cuban capital.

BESANÇON, France, Jun 05 (IPS) - Christina E. is a mother of three who lives in an apartment building in an upscale neighbourhood in Paris. As someone who prepares meals daily, she wishes she had a place besides her household garbage bin where she could put biodegradable waste.

ANTIGUA, Guatemala, Jun 05 (IPS) - The drug problem should be tackled not as a security issue but as a public health question, with policies for "prevention, treatment and rehabilitation," delegations from the 34 countries participating in the 43rd General Assembly of the Organisation of American States agreed.

SRINAGAR, India, Jun 05 (IPS) - Leaning on her daughter's arm in the post-operative ward of a hospital in Srinagar, capital of the northern Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, Raja Begam views the anti-infection pill she is being offered with a large dose of suspicion.

QUITO, Jun 05 (IPS) - Reports of another massacre in an isolated indigenous community in Ecuador's Amazon region cast doubt on the state's compliance with precautionary measures imposed in favour of uncontacted peoples in 2006 by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

BEIRUT, Jun 05 (IPS) - It was nine in the morning when the shell landed in front of nine-year-old Hella al-Abtah's house in the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp in Damascus. Hella survived the initial blast but was critically wounded in the head, and her father rushed her to the Palestine Hospital, blood pouring from the laceration.