News headlines in February 2016, page 8

OXFORD, Feb 08 (IPS) - After many years of unprecedented, crippling Western sanctions that stopped Iran's oil exports and even banking transactions, the long and arduous negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 (the United States, Russia, China, United Kingdom, France and Germany) culminated in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) agreed on 14 July 2015. That agreement finally reached the Implementation Day on 16th January 2016, coincidentally 37 years to the day when the late Mohammad Reza Shah left Iran for good and paved the way for the victory of the Islamic revolution.

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 08 (IPS) - Can you imagine an entire day without access to your mobile phone, laptop, or even to the internet? In our rapidly changing world, could you function without having technology at your fingertips?

PARIS, Feb 08 (IPS) - "No story is worth dying for." This comment at a landmark conference on media safety at UNESCO last Friday emphasised the bewilderment the media felt at the brutal slayings of journalists as they carry out their work.

Feb 05 (IPS) - With United Arab Emirates' foreign minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan's visit to Argentina, the two countries launched a new stage in bilateral relations, kicked off by high-level meetings and a package of accords.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Feb 05 (IPS) - Pakistan continues to remain one of the most dangerous countries for journalists, where frequent attempts to restrict press freedom are commonplace and challenges to expanding media diversity and access to information abound.

KAMPALA, Uganda, Feb 05 (IPS) - On October 2015, the day that Ugandan journalist Enoch Matovu, 25, was allegedly shot by the police for simply "doing my job", the police had "run out of tear gas", he claimed.

ROME, Feb 05 (IPS) - While our goal at Inter Press Service is to provide information – a precious global public good – we naturally applaud all efforts to foster and promote the safety of journalists, and so applaud UNESCO's international conference in Paris on Friday February 5, 2016 with media executives and member states to discuss just that.

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 04 (IPS) - After nine years in office, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will step down in December perhaps without achieving one of his more ambitious and elusive political goals: ensuring the entry into force of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT).

"This year marks 20 years since it has been open for signature," he said last week, pointing out that the recent nuclear test by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) – the fourth since 2006 -- was "deeply destabilizing for regional security and seriously undermines international non-proliferation efforts."

Rome, Feb 04 (IPS) - "During the first months in Italy, I always prayed for rain. I spent hours checking the weather forecast" said Roni, a 26 year old graduate from a middle-income family in Bangladesh. His father, a public servant and his mother a home maker, Roni had to sell umbrellas on the streets of Rome for more than a year before finding a summer job by the sea at a coffee shop, popularly known as a ‘bar' in Italy.