News headlines in April 2014, page 9

KANKER, India, Apr 15 (IPS) - Early in the morning, 14-year-old Sumari Varda puts on her blue school uniform, but heads for the village pond to fetch water. "I miss school. I wish I could go back," she whispers, scared of being heard by her employer.

Apr 15 (IPS) - The blaze that tore through the Chilean port city of Valparaíso revealed the dark side of one of the most important tourist destinations in this South American country, which hides in its hills high levels of poverty and inequality.

WASHINGTON, Apr 14 (IPS) - Greenhouse gas emissions rose more quickly between 2000 and 2010 than anytime during the previous three decades, the world's top climate scientists say, despite a simultaneous strengthening of national legislation around the world aimed at reducing these emissions.

YAKAMA NATION, Washington State, U.S., Apr 14 (IPS) - The Department of Energy (DOE), politicians and CEOs were discussing how to warn generations 125,000 years in the future about the radioactive waste at Hanford Nuclear Reservation, considered the most polluted site in the U.S., when Native American anti-nuclear activist Russell Jim interrupted their musings: "We'll tell them."

CAHUITA NATIONAL PARK, Costa Rica, Apr 14 (IPS) - The critically endangered hawksbill sea turtle has few sanctuaries left in the world, and this is one of them. But in 2012 only 53 nests were counted on the beaches of this national park in Costa Rica. And there is an enemy that conservation efforts can't fight: the beaches themselves are shrinking.

UNITED NATIONS, Apr 14 (IPS) - Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who has relentlessly advocated drastic cuts in global military spending in favour of sustainable development, will be sorely disappointed by the latest findings in a report released Monday by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

Apr 14 (IPS) - Malawi's President Joyce Banda is campaigning ahead of next month's elections to extend her term of office. But many believe that the massive public service corruption scandal here has weakened her chances of winning.

WASHINGTON, Apr 14 (IPS) - For the second year in a row, the world is spending a little less on the military. Asia, however, has failed to get the memo. The region is spending more at a time when many others are spending less.

REYKJAVIK, Apr 14 (IPS) - Posters with the words "Do you know who caught your seafood" are now appearing on buses, trains and other venues in Boston. They are part of a campaign organised by a coalition of U.S. environmental groups called Whales Need Us, to draw attention to the links between Icelandic whalers and fish sold in the U.S.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Apr 13 (IPS) - Mushfiq Wali, a 22-year-old shoemaker, loves watching films in the local Pashto language. But he says the Taliban are a killjoy: their bomb attacks have led to the closure of movie theatres, again. "They don't spare anything that brings happiness."