News headlines in July 2013, page 4

BAMAKO, Jul 27 (IPS) - An increasing number of Mali's political groups have warned of widespread fraud ahead of the presidential election on Sunday Jul. 28.

UTTARKASHI, India, Jul 27 (IPS) - Over a month after flash floods in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand in north India left 1,000 dead and 6,000 missing, the government has yet to release a full agricultural impact assessment, sparking fears about the extent of damage to the region's farmland.

GENEVA, Jul 27 (IPS) - Staunch opposition by the U.S. delegation and, to one extent or another, by European countries has blocked the approval this year of a draft multilateral declaration on the rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas, which is backed by the developing world.

WASHINGTON, Jul 26 (IPS) - Party allegiances apparently mean little in the U.S. when it comes to the debate over domestic government surveillance.

LISBON, Jul 26 (IPS) - "Who do I call if I want to call Europe?" This famous question attributed to former U.S. secretary of state Henry Kissinger has an obvious answer today: Angela Merkel, the conservative German chancellor.

UNITED NATIONS, Jul 26 (IPS) - Following fighting in the South Sudan state of Jonglei , the United Nations is trying to coordinate a humanitarian effort to help tens of thousands of people who have fled to the bush. The World Food Programme (WFP) has launched an operation to provide food for those who have escaped the conflict.

WASHINGTON, Jul 26 (IPS) - Even as policymakers around the world wrestle with how to cut future emissions of global greenhouse gases, some scientists and environmentalists are increasingly turning their attention to the carbon dioxide that is already in the atmosphere, trying to discern ways that this level can be efficiently and safely brought down.

QANDIL MOUNTAINS, Iraq, Jul 26 (IPS) - "I witnessed a Turkish tank made in Germany destroying a Kurdish village. Civilians, children included, were wounded, and many were taking shelter inside a besieged church," said Media, the German nurse who has become legendary in the Kurdish mountains of northern Iraq and is known here only by this name.

ADDIS ABABA, Jul 26 (IPS) - Ethiopia's track legend Haile Gebrselassie is mostly known for one thing – his world records. The two-time Olympic gold medallist, multiple world 10,000 m champion and holder of more than 27 world records in distances ranging from 1,500 m to the marathon, is now contemplating running a different race – for political office.

MEXICO CITY, Jul 25 (IPS) - Human rights groups are calling for the Committee on the Rights of the Child to bring the Mexican state to account, as it has done in other countries, for failing to investigate widespread reports of sexual abuse of minors in Catholic institutions.