News headlines in October 2013, page 3

WASHINGTON, Oct 29 (IPS) - Despite renewed calls in Congress for increasing pressure on Iran, support for a U.S. attack against the Islamic Republic has declined markedly over the past year, according to the latest in an annual series of polls carried out by the American Jewish Committee (AJC).

UNITED NATIONS, Oct 28 (IPS) - When the 193-member General Assembly adopts a resolution next month censuring the illegal electronic surveillance of governments and world leaders by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), the U.N.'s highest policy-making body will spare the United States from public condemnation despite its culpability in widespread wiretapping.

QUITO, Oct 28 (IPS) - The secrecy surrounding a friendly settlement in a case that Ecuador brought against Colombia in the International Court of Justice for damage caused by anti-drug spraying along the border has further angered those affected by the fumigation.

MANASSAS, Virginia, U.S., Oct 28 (IPS) - Political terrorism failed. The House Republicans used voting in one chamber to put the livelihoods of millions of people inside and outside the U.S. at risk, for their own political goals. And made the mistake of most terrorists, non-state or state: when people suffer they will join us, against our enemy; to find out that people turn against the terrorists instead.

CAIRO, Oct 28 (IPS) - Mahmoud Abu Yousef, 28, sits in one of the suburban subway stations of Egyptian capital Cairo selling socks. He had fled Syria with his wife and one-year-old child this February after his parents and three brothers were killed in the civil war that has been raging in his country since March 2011.

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, Oct 27 (IPS) - A centuries-old system for ensuring water security is making a comeback in the Caribbean.

UNITED NATIONS, Oct 26 (IPS) - Sri Lankan Tamil hopes for a separate state – Tamil Eelam – in the north and east of the island were dashed when the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) were summarily defeated in May 2009 by government forces.

VICTORIA, Guyana, Oct 26 (IPS) - Theola Fortune can recall how residents of Victoria would ridicule her and others every time they went into the east coast village to warn residents about the importance of mangroves and the need to protect them.

FINCA GALICIA, Cordillera Central, Colombia, Oct 26 (IPS) - A new system of tunnels at the Alto de La Línea mountain pass in Colombia's central Cordillera mountain range will open up a key logistics route for this country and neighbouring Venezuela. But it could be overcome by disaster if the Machín volcano erupts.