News headlines in February 2014, page 11

TOKYO, Feb 07 (IPS) - Tokyo, one of the largest and most energy-guzzling cities in the world, is set to hold elections for a new governor Feb. 9. Analysts say it could prove crucial in stopping the Japanese government from restarting some nuclear reactors this year.

Feb 06 (IPS) - Cambodia's garment industry is regularly plagued with strikes and protests. But when armed security forces opened fire on striking workers in the capital city of Phnom Penh on Jan. 3, killing five and injuring dozens, it suddenly became clear that this was not just another protest.

BAMAKO, Feb 06 (IPS) - Under the harsh Sunday afternoon sun, Daouda Dicko washes his client's clothes on the shore of the Niger River, which runs through Mali's capital, Bamako. "I started doing this to survive two years ago. Now, I am used to it and I don't mind the extra money it brings," Dicko, who also works as a gardener, tells IPS.

CAIRO, Feb 06 (IPS) - Heavy reliance on water intensive crops, a major upstream dam project for the Nile basin, and rising groundwater levels pushing at pharaoh-era monuments will be pressing issues for the next Egyptian president - whether military or civilian.

WASHINGTON, Feb 05 (IPS) - The U.S. government is violating federal leasing policies when it sells land to certain coal-mining companies, according to a new audit from an official watchdog agency.

WASHINGTON, Feb 05 (IPS) - When Western intelligence agencies began in the early 1990s to intercept telexes from an Iranian university to foreign high technology firms, intelligence analysts believed they saw the first signs of military involvement in Iran's nuclear programme. That suspicion led to U.S. intelligence assessments over the next decade that Iran was secretly pursuing nuclear weapons.

WASHINGTON, Feb 05 (IPS) - Global trends towards a strengthening of legal rights over land for local and indigenous communities appear to have slowed significantly in recent years, leading some analysts to warn that the fight for local control over forests has reached an inflection point with a new danger of backtracking on previous progress.

KAMPALA, Feb 05 (IPS) - There's the good: "A slight delay of about a minute."

The bad: "Terrible jam!!"

And the unbelievable: "No jam." But as long as Kampala motorists and pedestrians are talking traffic, the eight Ugandan creators of new app called RoadConexionare happy. For the time being, anyway.

SAN JOSÉ, Feb 05 (IPS) - Meeting Costa Rica's self-imposed goal of being the first country in the world to achieve carbon neutrality by 2021 will depend on the priority given this aim by the winner of the second round of the presidential elections in April.

SANCHEZ, Petite Martinique, Feb 05 (IPS) - Sanchez is a small central business district in Petite Martinique, the tiny island that forms part of the tri-nation state of Grenada, Carriacou and Petite Martinique.