News headlines in October 2013, page 2

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, India, Oct 30 (IPS) - When Sarath, 29, a security staffer with a private firm in Kattakada town in India's southern Kerala state hanged himself at his office premises, his death became a grim reminder of what statistics in the country have been showing for some time now: more and more young Indian men are succumbing to socio-economic pressures and are committing suicide.

BATTICALOA/KILLINOCHCHI, Sri Lanka, Oct 30 (IPS) - The battle might have been over four long years ago, but for the women in Sri Lanka's former conflict zones in the northern and eastern provinces, the war continues.

ABEYI, Oct 30 (IPS) - When Chris Bak returned two weeks ago to the disputed border town of Abyei, which voted this week on whether to join Sudan or South Sudan, he barely recognised it as the place where he grew up. "Everything is dirty," he told IPS. "We were just going around and around, but we didn't this place."

WASHINGTON, Oct 30 (IPS) - Bahraini opposition groups announced on Tuesday their opposition to participating in the dialogue that is supposed to start tomorrow. According to the Bahrain Mirror, the five opposition groups that signed the joint statement included al-Wifaq, Wa'd, al-Minbar, al-Tajammu', and al-Ikha'.

WASHINGTON, Oct 29 (IPS) - Saul Merlos is an undocumented migrant from El Salvador. About two years ago, he was living and working in the southern U.S. city of New Orleans.

WASHINGTON, Oct 29 (IPS) - As the first formal probe by an international rights body into allegations of U.S. mass surveillance began here Monday, privacy advocates from throughout the Americas accused Washington of violating international covenants and endangering civil society.

MONTEVIDEO, Oct 29 (IPS) - "We have come together to join forces, to be heard, because we want to speak for ourselves," said Ernestina Ochoa, a Peruvian domestic worker, at the close of the founding congress of the International Domestic Workers Federation in the Uruguayan capital.

YAOUNDÉ, Oct 29 (IPS) - With a wide smile Beatrice M.* says that she lives by the motto "life is short and beautiful — live it to the full." The 20-year-old, HIV-positive mother refuses to be defeated by her new circumstances.

HONIARA, Solomon Islands, Oct 29 (IPS) - For generations, eye diseases have taken their toll on Pacific Island peoples. Now the first nationwide survey in the Solomon Islands of Trachoma, which can lead to irreversible blindness by early adulthood, is revealing the silent penetration of this disease in widely dispersed Melanesian rural island communities.

BERN, Oct 29 (IPS) - Swiss voters will decide Nov. 24 on introducing a salary cap that would limit the wage spread in companies to 1:12. The economic lobby is nervous - success for the proposal in the referendum is not as unrealistic as once expected.