News headlines in October 2013, page 6

WASHINGTON, Oct 23 (IPS) - New and unexpected strains in Washington's ties with two of its closest Middle Eastern allies -- Saudi Arabia and Turkey -- have underlined the difficult challenges the administration of President Barack Obama faces in navigating its way in the region's increasingly treacherous and turbulent waters.

WASHINGTON, Oct 22 (IPS) - The talks between Iran and the P5+1 countries last week bring to mind Winston Churchill's 1942 description of World War II: "It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."

WASHINGTON, Oct 22 (IPS) - The U.S. government has been engaged in unlawful drone strikes in Pakistan that are in violation of international law, and may amount to war crimes, according to a new report released here by Amnesty International on Tuesday.

UNITED NATIONS, Oct 22 (IPS) - The tiger population in the rainforests of Sumatra is vanishing at a staggering rate, reducing the number of the endangered species to as few as 400, warns Greenpeace International.

HAVANA, Oct 22 (IPS) - In the 1960s, the Cuban government declared that storage of fresh water for times of drought or hurricanes was a matter of national security, and it began to dam up the country's rivers. But that policy has claimed an unforeseen victim: mangroves, which normally buffer the shoreline from the erosive impact of storms and waves.

NAIROBI, Oct 22 (IPS) - For years the Islamist extremist group Al-Shabaab was seen as the most cohesive, united and powerful force in the failed state of Somalia. But it is now disintegrating like a house of cards because of internal divisions and power struggles within its leadership, according to Abdiwahab Sheikh Abdisamad, a history and political science professor at Kenya's Kenyatta University.

PANGANI, Tanzania, Oct 22 (IPS) - The freshwater drinking supply of the coastal town of Pangani in northeast Tanzania is becoming increasingly contaminated as salt water steadily seeps in from the Indian Ocean.

UNITED NATIONS, Oct 21 (IPS) - When Saudi Arabia sought the presidency of the General Assembly in a bid for U.N. glory back in 1991, the oil-rich kingdom was facing Papua New Guinea in a race to head the highest policy-making body in the organisation.

WASHINGTON, Oct 21 (IPS) - As the planet heats up and larger populations demand larger water supplies, the United States will be left high and dry if it fails to address a worsening water shortage.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Oct 21 (IPS) - Carla Vilas Boas is of mixed-race descent – African, European and indigenous - like a majority of the population of Brazil. But she spends hours straightening her hair, trying to look more like the blond, blue-eyed women she sees in the mirror of television.