News headlines in December 2013, page 6

YAOUNDÉ, Dic 19 (IPS) - "We couldn't stand the violence anymore," said 27-year-old Baba Hamadou shortly after alighting from a chartered flight at the Douala International Airport earlier this week.

MEXICO CITY, Dic 19 (IPS) - As Mexico is about to open its oil industry up to foreign investment, it will need penalties for negligence and regulations that force private firms to follow best practices in order to avoid problems like oil spills, analysts say.

TRIPOLI, Dic 19 (IPS) - Unless immediate changes are enforced, Libya is heading towards an "Afghan" model regarding women´s rights, Aicha Almagrabi, a Libyan writer and senior women rights activist, told IPS from her residence in Tripoli.

WASHINGTON, Dic 18 (IPS) - The World Bank has raised some 52 billion dollars, a record amount, for its fund for development in the world's poorest countries, though some are expressing concerns over the terms under which some of this money is being offered by donor governments.

UNITED NATIONS, Dic 18 (IPS) - When Anoja Wijeyesekera, an aid worker with the U.N. children's agency UNICEF, received her new assignment in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan back in 1997, her appointment letter arrived with a "survival manual" and chilling instructions: write your last will before leaving home.

ANGRA DOS REIS, Brazil, Dic 18 (IPS) - Brazil has continued to develop nuclear energy despite the costs involved and the fact that the industry will never account for more than a small portion of the country's energy production.

JALALABAD,Afghanistan, Dic 18 (IPS) - Afghanistan's 30 million people are deeply divided over whether President Hamid Karzai should sign the Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) with Washington that will allow U.S. military operations to continue in the conflict-ravaged country after NATO forces leave in 2014.

CARACAS, Dic 17 (IPS) - "I ride 43 km a day and I love it," said Carlos Cantor in Bogotá, Colombia. "Five years ago I switched my car for a bike," explained Tomás Fuenzalida from Santiago, Chile.

ST. AUGUSTINE, Florida, Dic 17 (IPS) - The debate over structural unemployment, automation and jobless economic growth began in the 1960s as car factories replaced workers with robots.

LUSAKA, Dic 17 (IPS) - It is known as the land of copper to the outside world, but there's another c-word that does a roaring trade in Zambia, albeit locally - caterpillars.