News headlines in December 2013, page 8

QUNU, South Africa, Dic 15 (IPS) - As South Africa's first black president, Nelson Mandela, was laid to rest at his childhood home of Qunu in the Eastern Cape, Malawi's President Joyce Banda told mourners that it was Mandela who taught her how to forgive those who tried to keep her from becoming southern Africa's first female head of state.

NAHR EL BARED, Dic 15 (IPS) - As the Syrian war intensifies sectarian clashes in Lebanon's northern coastal city Tripoli, Palestinians in the area worriedly watch the violence from the sidelines.

BANGKOK, Dic 14 (IPS) - Twenty-five-year-old Ragae Hammidi of Casa Blanca, Morocco wears two hats. Five days a week, she attends a business school. But on weekends, she is a journalist who goes out on the street with a small camera, shooting videos of people and issues that go untold by professional media outlets.

MOSCOW, Dic 14 (IPS) - Russia is set to lose one of its few relatively objective news outlets as the Kremlin moves to tighten its grip on the country's media.

SPOKANE, Washington, Dic 13 (IPS) - In a lawsuit that could have nationwide implications for ballot-box access for tribes across the United States, Native Americans from Montana are pushing for early voting precincts to be placed closer to the locations of three tribal reservations - the Crow, Northern Cheyenne, and Fort Belknap reservations.   

BOGOTÁ, Dic 13 (IPS) - The ousted left-wing mayor of the Colombian capital, Gustavo Petro, is a casualty of the battle over the introduction of a Zero Garbage programme, which had included thousands of informal recyclers in the waste disposal business.

KOLKATA, Dic 13 (IPS) - Human rights have taken a step back in India, activists say after the Supreme Court overturned a ruling of the High Court that had earlier lifted the ban on gay sex.

ACCRA, Dic 13 (IPS) - It was 20-year-old Fizer Boa who first migrated south to Ghana's capital, Accra, to work in the local Abobloshie market as a porter or "Kayayei".

WASHINGTON, Dic 12 (IPS) - Developing countries are likely losing more than a trillion dollars a year in "illicit financial flows" stemming from crime and corruption, according to new estimates. This fast-rising figure is already 10 times the total amount of foreign aid these countries are receiving.

WASHINGTON, Dic 12 (IPS) - The U.S. government is being urged to roll back a longstanding policy that has banned foreign aid funding from being used for health care services for victims of sexual violence in conflict situations.