News headlines in January 2014, page 4

NEW YORK, Jan 27 (IPS) - It was a long and hard 10 hours of labour.

ADDIS ABABA, Jan 26 (IPS) - When representatives of the warring factions of South Sudan signed an agreement to end hostilities at a luxury hotel in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on Thursday, Jan, 23, fervent applause and some high-pitched ululations erupted from the audience.

CHIRAN (Japan), Jan 26 (IPS) - They were known as the Kamikaze who swooped down on enemy ships with their bomb-laden planes – with the pilots inside. A museum here is now planning to register the last letters of Japan's famed World War II suicide bombers as a Unesco Memory of the World document. The museum is calling these records "symbolic" of the country's commitment to peace.

WASHINGTON, Jan 25 (IPS) - Iran's pushback against statements by Secretary of State John Kerry and the White House that Tehran must "dismantle" some of its nuclear programme, and the resulting political uproar over it, indicates that tough U.S. rhetoric may be adding new obstacles to the search for a comprehensive nuclear agreement.

CORDOBA, Argentina, Jan 25 (IPS) - Residents of a town in Argentina have won the first victory in their fight against biotech giant Monsanto, but they are still at battle stations, aware that winning the war is still a long way off.

KIEV, Jan 25 (IPS) - Groups battling one of the world's worst HIV/AIDS epidemics say their task may get "catastrophically" harder following the introduction of controversial laws in Ukraine in response to months of anti-government protests.

WASHINGTON, Jan 24 (IPS) - As the Egyptian revolution against Hosni Mubarak celebrates its third anniversary, the military junta under General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is resurrecting dictatorship under the veneer of "constitutional" legitimacy and on the pretense of fighting "terrorism."

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 24 (IPS) - In the exclusive, rarified air of Davos, Thursday's attendees at the World Economic Forum shared in a whiff of decriminalisation at a panel on drug policy in the Swiss alpine city that included former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, Texas Governor Rick Perry and the head of Human Rights Watch, Ken Roth.

JUBA, Jan 24 (IPS) - The overwhelming job of providing relief to the more than half a million displaced and wounded in South Sudan may have gotten a little easier with the signing of a ceasefire agreement last night in Addis Ababa, which is set to go into effect today.

NAIROBI, Jan 24 (IPS) - Kenyan government security forces are forcefully evicting thousands of people, including the indigenous Sengwer tribe, from the Embobut forest in western Kenya by burning homes and possessions in an effort to promote forest conservation, safeguard urban water access and "remove squatters".