News headlines in August 2013, page 2

WASHINGTON, Aug 29 (IPS) - Workers at fast-food restaurants in 60 cities across the United States went on a one-day strike Thursday, the largest action yet in a strengthening year-long push for higher wages and the opportunity to form unions without retaliation.

LILONGWE/JOHANNESBURG, Aug 29 (IPS) - The Southern African Development Community has had to revisit its plans to raise funding for its ambitious regional development plan in the wake of a cold-shoulder from western nations and multilateral finance institutions.

GOMA, DR Congo, Aug 29 (IPS) - Over 2,000 children are still being used as soldiers by 27 armed groups in North Kivu in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo despite efforts by the United Nations Children's Fund to remove them from the frontlines and return them to their homes.

Aug 29 (IPS) - Zuhair Hassib did not witness the last and the most ghastly massacre in Syria. Images of last year's Siege of Homs were enough for the artist to have seen. His paintings have brought those horrors home in a way pictures could never have.

BUENOS AIRES, Aug 29 (IPS) - As a sign of Argentina's willingness to repay its bondholders, President Cristina Fernández introduced a bill for a new swap of the foreign debt held by "holdout" creditors who refused earlier restructurings after the country's late 2001 default.

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 28 (IPS) - When the administration of President George W. Bush launched a military attack on Iraq in March 2003, it was nearly 18 months before Kofi Annan, then-U.N. secretary-general, described the invasion as "illegal" and in "violation of the U.N. charter" because the United States did not have Security Council authorisation.

WASHINGTON, Aug 28 (IPS) - Three years after the passage of landmark legislation aimed at strengthening regulation of major U.S. companies, one of the most criticised disparities characterising today's corporate culture – the outsized compensation offered to top executives – continues to grow.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Aug 28 (IPS) - It's Saturday, and the entrance hall of a police station in front of the busy market in Salomon in the Haitian capital has become an improvised health post. In a few minutes there is a long queue of people waiting to be seen by the Cuban medical brigade.

WASHINGTON, Aug 28 (IPS) - Israel and its domestic U.S. lobby are already in the early stages of the next 10-year aid package, which would not go into effect until 2017 and will be the first since Congress passed the Naval Vessel Transfer Act of 2008, which requires in part that U.S. military aid to Israel ensure that Israel maintains its "Qualitative Military Edge" (QME) over any combination of states and non-state actors.

COPENHAGEN, Aug 28 (IPS) - For Denmark's leading chefs, it's not only the "taste" that counts. Many have an ambitious goal to "revise the relationship between people and food," use local ingredients, produce less waste and go completely organic.