News headlines in May 2014, page 6

MOSCOW, May 21 (IPS) - International bodies and local campaign groups have repeatedly criticised Russia for not doing anywhere near enough in terms of providing prevention services or access to medical treatment for HIV/AIDS sufferers. The fourth Eastern Europe and Central Asia (EECA) HIV/AIDS Conference, which finished in Moscow last week, has not put a stop to that criticism.

BONN, May 21 (IPS) - Some of the Earth's most delicate tropical paradises are being disfigured by the by-products of the modern age - marine debris: plastic bottles, carrier bags and discarded fishing gear. 

BELGRADE, May 21 (IPS) - The Balkans region is living one of its most horrible springs ever, after the worst flooding in 120 years took 47 lives and witnessed evacuation of dozens of thousands of Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs in a matter of days last week. 

JOHANNESBURG, May 21 (IPS) - I had the privilege of visiting South Sudan a few months after the world's youngest state had been born in July 2011.  Then, most people were wondering what the future held for the country.  The road has not been easy so far.

SEOUL, May 21 (IPS) - In the weeks since the South Korean ferry Sewol sank—taking with it the lives of over 300 passengers, the vast majority of them high school students—the country continues to be wracked by a palpable mix of grief, guilt, and outrage.

NAIROBI, May 21 (IPS) - Janice Gacheri imports handbags and shoes from China which she sells on social media sites and by word of mouth to customers in Nairobi and neighbouring towns. 

ABUJA, May 20 (IPS) - Multiple car bombs killed dozens Tuesday in the central Nigerian city of Jos, Plateau state, days after a security summit in France where African leaders committed to a "war" on Nigeria's Islamist rebels, Boko Haram.

BUENOS AIRES, May 20 (IPS) - The advertising department of Swiss agribusiness giant Syngenta was on a roll in early 2004 when it published a map that dubbed a large area of Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay the "United Republic of Soy".

DHARAMSALA, India, May 20 (IPS) - Nestled in the Kangra Valley in the shadow of the Dhauladhar Mountains in the northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh, Dharamsala is beautiful to behold. But the scenic landscape belies a dark reality: the cult of martyrs that has developed in this town, home to the Tibetan government-in-exile since 1959.

JABAL AL-AKRAD (SYRIA), May 20 (IPS) - In the mountains east of the coastal port of government-held Latakia, three years of regime bombardment has left swaths of blackened stumps in the mountain forests and crumbling concrete structures in Sunni villages, most of whose inhabitants support opposition forces.