News headlines in August 2014, page 3

SAN JUAN, Aug 27 (IPS) - A feeling of insecurity has overtaken broad sectors of Puerto Rican society as the economy worsens, public sector debt spirals out of control, and the island's creditworthiness is put in doubt.

DABI, Nepal, Aug 27 (IPS) - Living in a makeshift tarpaulin shelter, which barely protects her family from the torrential rainfall or scorching heat of this remote village in southern Nepal, 36-year-old Kamala Pari is under immense stress, worrying about her financial security and children's safety.

WASHINGTON, Aug 26 (IPS) - Civil society groups from several continents are stepping up a campaign urging the World Bank to strengthen a series of changes currently being made to a major annual report on countries' business-friendliness.

COYHAIQUE, Chile, Aug 26 (IPS) - After its victory in a nearly decade-long struggle against HidroAysén, a project that would have built five large hydroelectric dams on wilderness rivers, Chile's Patagonia region is gearing up for a new battle: blocking a quiet attempt to build a dam on the Cuervo River.

BERLIN/ROME, Aug 26 (IPS) - Inter Press Service News Agency has braved severe political assaults and financial tempests since 1964, when Roberto Savio and Pablo Piacentini laid its foundation as a unique and challenging information and communication system.

MATTRU JONG, Sierra Leone, Aug 26 (IPS) - Emmanuel is a male midwife.

At the age of 26, he lives and works on one of eight islands off the southwest peninsular of Sierra Leone, an hour by speedboat from Mattru Jong, the capital of Bonthe District.

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 26 (IPS) - Having lived and worked for more than a decade in four Caribbean countries, I have witnessed firsthand how Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are extremely vulnerable to challenges ranging from debt and unemployment to climate change and sea level rise.

KANDOPLEU/ABIDJAN, Côte d’Ivoire, Aug 26 (IPS) - The nurse carefully packs the body into a plastic bag and then leaves the isolation tent, rinsing his feet in a bucket of water that contains bleach. Then he carefully takes off his safety glasses, gloves and mask and burns them in a jerry can.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Aug 26 (IPS) - Between government efforts to wipe out insurgents from Pakistan's northern, mountainous regions, and the Taliban's own campaign to exercise power over the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), the real victims of this conflict are often invisible.

GRABICE, Poland / PROSCHIM, Germany, Aug 26 (IPS) - "People have gathered here to tell their politicians that the way in which we used energy and our environment in the 19^th and 20^th centuries is now over," says Radek Gawlik, one of Poland's most experienced environmental activists. "The time for burning coal has passed and the sooner we understand this, the better it is for us."