News headlines in November 2014, page 4

TOKYO, Nov 21 (IPS) - As we approach the 70th anniversary next year of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there are growing calls to place the humanitarian consequences of their use at the heart of deliberations about nuclear weapons.

BEIRUT, Nov 21 (IPS) - Staring at the floor, Hassan, a 21-year-old Syrian refugee from Idlib in northwestern Syria, holds a set of identification papers in his hands. He picks out a small pink piece of paper with a few words on it stating that he must obtain a work contract, otherwise his residency visa will not be renewed.

YANGON, Nov 21 (IPS) - Myanmar is never out of the news for long. This has been the case since a popular uprising challenged military rule in 1988. For over two decades, the country was featured in mainstream media primarily as one unable to cope with its own internal contradictions, a nation crippled by violence.

ROME, Nov 21 (IPS) - Less than a week after everybody celebrated the historical agreement on Nov. 17 between the United States and China on reduction of CO₂ emissions, a very cold shower has come from India.

WASHINGTON, Nov 21 (IPS) - The key U.S. advocate of a proposal to create a multilateral body mandated to investigate allegations of political corruption says the idea is receiving significant interest from civil society, politicians and major business leaders.

MEXICO CITY, Nov 20 (IPS) - "Alive they were taken, and alive we want them back!"

MEXICO CITY, Nov 20 (IPS) - Sandra G. works Monday through Saturday in a beauty salon on the south side of Mexico City, where she earns slightly more than the minimum wage, which in this country is just five dollars a day.

WASHINGTON, Nov 20 (IPS) - The recent killing of an Arab youth by the police in the Israeli Arab village of Kufr Kanna, outside Nazareth, the ongoing bloody violence in Jerusalem, and the growing tensions between the Israeli security services and the Arab community in Israel could be a dangerous omen for Israeli domestic stability and for the region.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Nov 20 (IPS) - Balwan Singh, an 84-year-old shopkeeper living in Pakistan's northern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, is well past retirement age, but any illusions he may have had about living out his golden years in peace and security have long since been dashed.

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 20 (IPS) - Numerous international and national efforts have focused on gender equality and the empowerment of women. The United Nations, for example, has convened four world conferences on women - Beijing in 1995, Nairobi in 1985, Copenhagen in 1980 and Mexico City in 1975 - and Member States have adopted various international agreements, such as the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).