News headlines in June 2015, page 4

OSLO, Jun 24 (IPS) - When he died at the age of 80 on Jun. 18 in Oslo, Fredrik Fasting Torgersen had divided Norway for 56 years and the "Torgersen case" had attracted international interest in forensic science circles, among them the U.S.-based Innocence Project.

LONDON, Jun 24 (IPS) - The overwhelming majority of lobby meetings held by European Commissioners and their closest advisors are with representatives of corporate interests, according to an analysis published Jun. 24 by Transparency International (TI).

CANBERRA, Australia, Jun 24 (IPS) - A referendum on independence within the next five years dominated campaigning in the recent general election held in Bougainville, an autonomous region of 300,000 people in the east of Papua New Guinea (PNG), which emerged from a decade-long civil war 15 years ago.

Jun 23 (IPS) - Travel into the heart of Kenya's southern Coast Province, nearly 500 km from the capital city of Nairobi, and you will come across one of the planet's most curious World Heritage Sites: the remains of several fortified villages, revered by the indigenous Mijikenda people as the sacred abodes of their ancestors.

UNITED NATIONS, Jun 23 (IPS) - The widespread use of digital technology – including satellite imagery, body cameras and smart phones – is fast becoming a new tool in monitoring and capturing human rights violations worldwide.

PORT OF SPAIN, Jun 23 (IPS) - For a decade, the Water and Sewerage Authority (WASA) of Trinidad and Tobago had been mapping the country's water quality. Five years ago, they started to notice a worrying trend.

BUENOS AIRES, Jun 23 (IPS) - Until not too long ago, young people in Argentina faced a choice: whether to study or drop out and go to work. But now most adolescents in Argentina who work also continue to study – a change that poses new challenges for combating school dropout, repetition and truancy, as well as the circle of poverty.

ROME, Jun 23 (IPS) - After the turn of the century, growth in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) picked up again after a quarter century of near stagnation for most, mainly due to increased world demand for minerals and other natural resources.

UNITED NATIONS, Jun 22 (IPS) - For an entire month beginning in February 2015, a group of between 40 and 50 residents of the Durgapur Village in the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand would gather at the site of a hydroelectric power project being carried out by the state-owned Tehri Hydro Development Corporation (THDC).

UNITED NATIONS, Jun 22 (IPS) - Democracy is on the retreat and authoritarianism is on the rise in more than 96 of the U.N.'s 193 member states, according to a new report released here.