News headlines in December 2014, page 3

WASHINGTON, Dic 20 (IPS) - After months of whispered warnings, Russia's economic troubles made global headlines when its currency collapsed halfway through December. Amid the tumbling price of oil, the ruble has fallen to record lows, bringing the country to its most serious economic crisis since the late 1990s.

NEW DELHI, Dic 19 (IPS) - Virtually all countries use Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as their primary measurement of economic progress and overall societal progress. At the same time, countries express allegiance to the doctrine of sustainable development. This exposes an obvious disconnect.

TASHKENT, Dic 19 (IPS) - Uzbekistan's parliamentary elections on Dec. 21 will offer voters a choice, but no hope for change.

WASHINGTON, Dic 19 (IPS) - An unprecedented number of United Nations special rapporteurs and independent experts are raising pointed concerns over the World Bank's ongoing review of its pioneering environmental and social safeguards, particularly around the role that human rights will play in these revamped policies.

UNITED NATIONS, Dic 19 (IPS) - When the politically-charismatic Ernesto Che Guevera, once second-in-command to Cuban leader Fidel Castro, was at the United Nations to address the General Assembly sessions back in 1964, the U.N. headquarters came under attack - literally.

Dic 18 (IPS) - Dercy Teles de Carvalho Cunha is a rubber-tapper and union organiser from the state of Acre in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon, with a lifelong love of the forest from which she earns her livelihood – and she is deeply confounded by what her government and policymakers around the world call "the green economy."

TRIPOLI, Libya, Dic 18 (IPS) - It's easy to spot Saani Bubakar in Tripoli´s old town: always dressed in the distinctive orange jumpsuit of the waste collectors, he pushes his cart through the narrow streets on a routine that has been his for the last three years of his life.

BELFAST, Dic 18 (IPS) - I recently visited Assisi, the home of St. Francis and St. Clare, two great spirits whose lives have inspired us and millions of people around the world.

WASHINGTON, Dic 18 (IPS) - In perhaps his boldest foreign-policy move during his presidency, Barack Obama Wednesday announced that he intends to establish full diplomatic relations with Cuba.

HARARE, Dic 18 (IPS) - Despite a mandate to eradicate HIV/AIDS under the U.N. Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), Zimbabwe has done little or nothing to reduce the rate of infection among vulnerable gays and lesbians, say activists here.