News headlines in September 2015, page 6

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 16 (IPS) - The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), which was adopted by the U.N. General Assembly back in 1996, has still not come into force for one primary reason: eight key countries have either refused to sign or have held back their ratifications.

ROME, Sep 16 (IPS) - A new post-2015 international development agenda is to be officially launched next week at a U.N. summit in New York. The ambitious list of 17 development goals includes a call for a revitalization of the global partnership for sustainable development.

LA PALMA, Cuba, Sep 16 (IPS) - Armando Marcelino Pi divides his day between the university, where he teaches philosophy, work on his family farm, and coordinating a group of 33 agroecological farmers, in this mountainous rural municipality in western Cuba.

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 15 (IPS) - The 28-member European Union (EU), which was sharply divided over the Greek bailout financial crisis last year, is facing its biggest test of unity over the growing refugee crisis unfolding in European borders.

COLOMBO, SRI LANKA, Sep 15 (IPS) - UNGA 70 formally commenced on Sep. 15. In accordance with custom, it elected a new President, Denmark's Mogens Lykketoft, who has picked as the theme for his tenure as the President, "The UN at 70 - A New Commitment to Action".

LONDON, Sep 15 (IPS) - Human rights and citizen activist groups are criticizing one of the world's largest arms bazaars, which opened at London's Docklands Tuesday.

TUNIS, Sep 15 (IPS) - Once surrounding castles of old, a moat stretching 100 miles is being dug by Tunisia against alleged terror threats from nearby Libya. Reporters are kept at bay from the digging in what officials have dubbed "a closed military area."

SAN JOSE, Sep 15 (IPS) - After banning in vitro fertilisation for 12 years and failing to comply with an Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruling for another three years, Costa Rica will finally once again allow the procedure for couples and women on their own.

Sep 14 (IPS) - "Many of them have died waiting for justice. Many have died in silence. We've had enough of painful waiting and unjustified silences. This is the time to join together in the search for truth." With these words, one year ago, Chilean President Michelle Bachelet marked the 41st anniversary of the 1973 coup d'etat in which a defiant general Augusto Pinochet took power by force.

OXFORD, Sep 12 (IPS) - When negotiations between Iran and the European "Troika" broke down, the reformist government of Mohammad Khatami was discredited in the eyes of the Iranian electorate which had seen the futility of negotiating with the West.