News headlines in May 2015, page 8

NEW YORK, May 12 (IPS) - Ahmad Muaffaq Zaidan doesn't deny that he's had contact with terrorist groups. In fact, it would have been rather difficult to do his job otherwise.

NEW DELHI, May 12 (IPS) - "I was brutally raped thrice by my husband. He kept me under surveillance in his Dubai house while I suffered from severe malnutrition and depression. When I tried to flee from this hellhole, he confiscated my passport, deprived me of money and beat me up," recalls Anna Marie Lopes, 28, a rape survivor who after six years of torture, finally managed to board a flight to New Delhi from the United Arab Emirates in 2012.

UNITED NATIONS, May 12 (IPS) - A rising tide of sexual abuse in U.N. peacekeeping operations has triggered the launch of a high-level campaign to end the continued attacks on women and children and an urgent call for the creation of an independent commission of inquiry.

SITTWE, Myanmar, May 12 (IPS) - In Myanmar's Western Rakhine State, over a hundred thousand people displaced by inter communal violence that broke out nearly three years ago remain interned in camps on torrid plains and coastal marshes, struggling to survive.

GENEVA, May 12 (IPS) - On Apr. 20, this year, four of my colleagues tragically lost their lives in Northern Somalia, when an explosive device ripped through their minibus as they travelled back to their guesthouse.

UNITED NATIONS, May 11 (IPS) - Speaking at the U.N. Security Council, Federica Mogherini, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs, called on the international community to take urgent steps to end the Mediterranean crisis and dismantle the human smuggling rings that facilitate it.

SAN JOSE, May 11 (IPS) - After years of violence against two indigenous groups in Costa Rica, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) demanded that the government adopt measures by May 15 to protect the life and physical integrity of the members of the two communities.

UNITED NATIONS, May 11 (IPS) - Albert Einstein, the internationally-renowned physicist who developed the theory of relativity, once famously remarked: "I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."

UNITED NATIONS, May 11 (IPS) - U.N. member states are meeting throughout the year to finalize the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which will set the global development agenda for the next 15 years. The goals are supposed to be universal and aspire to "leave no one behind."