News headlines in 2015, page 14

PAVAKODICHENNAI, Sri Lanka, Oct 29 (IPS) - Thavarasa Utharai's most treasured belongings are stuck inside several plastic bags and tucked within old traveling bags.

NEW YORK, Oct 28 (IPS) - Surprise turned to confusion, then to horror, when the children at Kiata primary school realized that the soldiers they had spotted at the bottom of the hill were heading for their school and its occupants.

PESHAWAR, Oct 28 (IPS) - "My grandmother rushed inside the room to save me. Roof suddenly collapsed and she died," said 12-year-old Mushtari Bibi.

NEW DELHI, Oct 28 (IPS) - Delhi's shame is that it's the rape capital of India. The recent brutal rape of minors only underscores the tragic fact that nothing has changed since December 16, 2012 when a 23-year old physiotherapy student was gang-raped in a moving bus and triggered a nationwide outrage.

MEXICO CITY, Oct 28 (IPS) - "This plant heals 150 ailments, like diabetes, high blood pressure and gastritis. It's prepared as an infusion or blended with water, and you take it every day," says Clemente Calixto, a traditional indigenous healer in Mexico, holding up a green leafy branch.

ISTANBUL, Oct 27 (IPS) - This Sunday, November 1, Turkey heads to the polls for the second time this year, to elect the 550 members of its Grand National Assembly. The snap elections were called for by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in late August when the different parties failed to form a coalition government after the June elections, in which the Justice and Development Party (AKP) had lost its parliamentary majority for the first time since its 13 years in power.

CÁRDENAS, Cuba, Oct 27 (IPS) - Cuba's oil industry only exploits five percent of the petroleum found in onshore and offshore deposits due to a lack of foreign capital and technology to develop oilfields like Varadero 1000, the country's biggest oil operation until now.

SHAMVA, Zimbabwe, Oct 26 (IPS) - Last season, Mollene Kachambwa lost a tonne of the 5 tonnes of maize the family harvested to weevils and fungi.

UNITED NATIONS, Oct 26 (IPS) - A former UN Secretary-General once paid a supreme compliment to the work of civil society groups when he described non-governmental organisations (NGOs) as the world's "third super power" –- presumably ranking behind the United States and Russia.

BOYARSHIN, Bangladesh, Oct 26 (IPS) - Twice a week, 20-year-old Kulsum Begam, a young mother of two, spends over three hours gossiping with the neighbours.