News headlines in July 2014, page 9

WASHINGTON, Jul 14 (IPS) - Some of the largest companies in the United States have banded together to call for a substantial increase in the production of renewable electricity, as well as for more simplicity in purchasing large blocs of green energy.

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, Jul 14 (IPS) - Lefties Food Stall, a pint-sized eatery serving Barbados' signature flying-fish sandwiches, recently became the first snack shack on the Caribbean island to be fitted with a solar panel.

KILINOCHCHI, Sri Lanka, Jul 14 (IPS) - People are willing to wait a long time for a few minutes in the hands of Aloysius Patrickeil, a 32-year-old barber who is part-owner of a small shop close to the northern town of Kilinochchi, 320 km from Sri Lanka's capital, Colombo.

UNITED NATIONS, Jul 14 (IPS) - When the 15-member Security Council, the most powerful body at the United Nations, fails to resolve a military conflict, it invariably exercises one of its tried, and mostly failed, options: punish the warring parties by imposing punitive sanctions.

TOKYO, Jul 14 (IPS) - In recent years, Japan has found itself it in a rapidly changing security environment. The global balance of power has shifted and various new threats have emerged within the region, including the development of weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile systems that may soon be capable of delivering them.

BARCELONA, Jul 14 (IPS) - A few decades ago, even before the end of the Cold War and before and after Ronald Reagan's election to the White House, analyses regularly referred to U.S. decadence. At other times, it was Europe's turn for pessimistic descriptions, especially when it could not overcome its ambivalence over deepening integration, and above all because of the failure of its constitutional project. 

MOSCOW, Jul 14 (IPS) - When Veronika Sintsova was diagnosed with tuberculosis in 2009, she spent six months in hospital before being discharged and allowed to continue treatment as an outpatient.

BATTIR, West Bank, Jul 13 (IPS) - The Palestinian village of Battir, just six kilometres southwest of Jerusalem and a similar distance from Bethlehem, is the latest to be trapped in the gap between international recognition and Israel's policies in the West Bank.

BANJUL, Jul 13 (IPS) - Women's rights activists in the Gambia are insisting that more than 30 years of campaigning to raise awareness should be sufficient to move the government to outlaw female genital mutilation (FMG).

KENEMA, Sierra Leone, Jul 12 (IPS) - Adikali Kamara is a 36-year-old student nurse working in the government hospital in Kenema, a sprawling town on the fringe of the Sierra Leone's Gola tropical rain forest.