News headlines in August 2012, page 14

WASHINGTON, Aug 17 (IPS) - Following on calls by civil society, the World Bank has released a draft summary framework for its re-engagement with Myanmar over the next year and a half. The formal interim strategy is slated to be ready by the end of October.

WASHINGTON, Aug 17 (IPS) - The U.S. State Department released a statement Friday urging the Bahraini government to reconsider a ruling that sentenced the director of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, Nabeel Rajab, to a three-year jail term for organising opposition rallies.

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 17 (IPS) - With the U.N. ominously warning of an impending food crisis following severe droughts in farmlands in the United States, Brazil, Russia and at least two rain-deprived states in India, the world will once again turn its attention to a finite natural resource: water.

BUENOS AIRES, Aug 17 (IPS) - After more than a decade of campaigning against toxic agrochemicals, a group of women from a poor neighbourhood in the northern Argentine city of Córdoba have brought large-scale soybean growers to trial for the health damages caused by spraying.

LAKE CHILWA, Malawi, Aug 17 (IPS) - Fisherfolk and farmers living near Malawi’s second-largest water body, Lake Chilwa, are relocating en masse and scrambling for space around its shores as the lake has dried to dangerously low levels.

SANTIAGO, Aug 17 (IPS) - Because “schools reflect what is going on in society,” an analysis of what is behind the high rates of bullying in Latin America is urgently needed, says Marcela Román, an expert on education in the region.

NEW YORK, Aug 17 (IPS) - Two months after he sought refuge in Ecuador's London embassy, WikiLeaks' founder Julian Assange was formally granted asylum by Quito on Thursday.

WASHINGTON, Aug 17 (IPS) - The U.S. State Department released a statement Friday urging the Bahraini government to reconsider a ruling that sentenced the director of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, Nabeel Rajab, to a three-year jail term for organising opposition rallies.

TILLABERI, Niger, Aug 17 (IPS) - When her name is called, Rékia Djibo leaves the group of women gathered in front of the school in Toula, and takes a confident step towards the door. Djibo is one of the recipients of a cash transfer from the World Food Programme here on the outskirts of the southwestern Niger city of Tillabéri.

PHNOM PENH, Aug 17 (IPS) - The deaths of dozens of Cambodian children in recent months from an initially undiagnosed disease has highlighted the difficult balancing act between informing the public and potentially provoking panic.