News headlines in 2015, page 41

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 03 (IPS) - On July 29 Russia vetoed a draft U.N. Security Council (UNSC) resolution on the establishment of an international tribunal to investigate the downing of Malaysia Airlines MH17 flight over eastern Ukraine last year - killing all 298 people on board.

PRETORIA, Aug 03 (IPS) - The Freedom Charterwhich turned 60 this year, envisaged that a free and democratic South Africa would be guided in its relations with the rest of the African continent and the world by a desire to seek "peace and friendship".

BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe, Aug 02 (IPS) - With the U.N. Climate Change conference later this year in Paris fast approaching, Zimbabwe's climate change commitments face the slow progress on an issue that continues to stalk other developing countries – climate finance.

LAGOS, Aug 02 (IPS) - Nigeria seems in no haste to unveil its climate pledge with just four months to go before the U.N. Climate Conference scheduled for December in Paris.

YAOUNDE, Aug 02 (IPS) - Marking a shift away from the growing trend of abandoning sustainable life styles and drifting from traditional customs and routines, Joshua Konkankoh is a Cameroonian farmer with a vision – that the answer to food insecurity lies in sustainable and organic methods of farming.

SAN SALVADOR, Aug 01 (IPS) - In recommendations to German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the end of July, the German Council of Economic Experts outlined how a weak member country could leave the Eurozone and called for strengthening the European monetary union.

LONDON, Jul 31 (IPS) - Cecil the lion, a magnificent senior male, much loved and part of a long-term research project, was lured out of a safe haven in Zimbabwe's Hwange National Park last week and apparently illegally shot, to endure a protracted death.

UNITED NATIONS, Jul 31 (IPS) - "Let us remember that behind every story, every figure, every number, there is a person - a girl, a boy, a parent, a family," Anne Christine Eriksson, Acting Director of the U.N. Refugee Agency (UNHCR), said at a panel discussion at the U.N. on Thursday.

ALTAMIRA, Brazil, Jul 31 (IPS) - Paulo de Oliveira drives a taxi in the northern Brazilian city of Altamira, but only when he is out of work in what he considers his true profession: operator of heavy vehicles like trucks, mixers or tractor loaders.

GAZA CITY, Jul 31 (IPS) - Thirteen-year-old Hula Khadoura sits on a large sofa in her grandfather's home in the neighbourhood of Tuffah, Gaza City, her one-year-old twin brothers Karam and Adam on her lap. "I am so happy they arrived," she beams, holding the babies' feeding bottles in her hands.