News headlines in September 2013, page 3

YAOUNDÉ, Sep 26 (IPS) - When Daniel Mgwape, a Baka man in Mindourou of the East Region of Cameroon, felt like drinking local liquor commonly called ‘kitoko', he simply took his biometric voter ID card to the village bar tender.

HARARE, Sep 26 (IPS) - On top of a small wooden cabin in Norton, a dormitory town outside the capital of Zimbabwe, is a solar panel that Silvester Ngunzi uses to light up his household.

WASHINGTON, Sep 25 (IPS) - Gender equality around the world has increased dramatically over the past half-century even though the vast majority of countries continue to restrict women's economic development in at least one way, the World Bank reports this week.

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 25 (IPS) - As world leaders from 193 countries evaluate the successes and failures of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) during high-level meetings and special events here, the United Nations claims that extreme poverty worldwide has been cut in half.

MALAGA, Spain, Sep 25 (IPS) - Adopt a tree. Adopt a polar bear. Sponsor a child in a poor country. The concept has caught on in Spain's troubled academic system and now people and companies can sponsor a university student.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Sep 25 (IPS) - The TransBrasil bus rapid transit system, which will connect poor suburbs with the centre of Rio de Janeiro, will be the high-speed bus corridor that serves the largest number of commuters in the world.

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 25 (IPS) - Reducing the proportion of undernourished people by half until 2015 was one of the Millennium Development Goals that the international community set in 2000. It will not be reached: At least 870 million people worldwide – and one child in five – still go hungry; this in a world where we already produce enough food today to feed nine billion people in 2050.

SEBHA, Libya, Sep 25 (IPS) - "The government doesn't care about us because we are from the south," Mohamed Salah Lichekh, head of the Oubari local council in southern Libya, told IPS, expressing the majority sentiment in this part of the country.

NAIROBI, Sep 25 (IPS) - Ali Hassan Gitonga, 33, a recent convert to Islam from the Meru community in Kenya's Eastern Province, is said to have travelled to Somalia for training with Al-Shabaab in 2011. He is under arrest for alleged involvement in the Sep. 21 Westgate Mall terror attack in Nairobi.

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 25 (IPS) - While the U.S. and Iranian heads of state have yet to meet, the 68^th session of the United Nations General Assembly may mark a new era between the two countries.