News headlines in June 2016, page 6

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jun 17 (IPS) - The outrage in Brazil over the gang-rape of a 16-year-old girl by more than 30 men prompted mass protests by thousands of women on the streets of cities around the country, while activists complain that the response to the case by politicians has been misfocused.

UNITED NATIONS, Jun 17 (IPS) - Only a small percentage of the world's most vulnerable refugees will be resettled in 2017, according to new figures released by the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) this week.

ROME, Jun 17 (IPS) - Allow me a rare personal anecdote. In 1965 I met Lord Hume, who had just left the post of Prime Minister and we had a mutual sympathy. Lord Hume invited me for lunch at the Chamber of Lords. Over an extremely delicious rump of Scottish lamb, I asked if I was allowed to ask a complex question. I explained that I had started my professional career as a Kremlinologist, which had served me well in following British foreign policy. One day London was looking to Europe as its compass, and another day, to Washington. All this on the basis of small signals, difficult to detect. Could his Lordship explain to me how to address this dualism?

PEMBA, Zambia, Jun 16 (IPS) - It's just after two p.m. on a sunny Saturday and 51-year-old Moses Kasoka is seated outside the grass-thatched hut which serves both as his kitchen and bedroom.

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Jun 16 (IPS) - Debt anxieties are not new, often fanned by political competition. But so is a double dip recession due to premature deficit reduction. For example, to seek re-election, President Roosevelt backed down from his New Deal in 1937, promising that "a balanced budget on the way". In 1938, he slashed government spending, and unemployment shot up to 19 per cent.

UNITED NATIONS, Jun 15 (IPS) - Wheelchairs, hearing aids, white canes and braille typewriters are just some of the products that help people with disabilities to participate fully in everyday life.

UNITED NATIONS, Jun 15 (IPS) - The 134-member Group of 77, the largest single coalition of developing countries, has expressed serious concern over the "unprecedented" withdrawal of nine member states from the Vienna-based UN Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO).

SANTIAGO, Jun 15 (IPS) - Curbing soil degradation is essential for ecological sustainability and food security in Latin America and the Caribbean.

BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe, Jun 15 (IPS) - "It is everything" is how smallholder farmer Nyovane Ndlovu describes beekeeping, which has long been an alternative sweet source of income for drought-beaten farmers in Zimbabwe.