News headlines in August 2012, page 15

KABUL, Aug 17 (IPS) - Nematullah Wardak from Sayedabad in Maidan Wardak province works in Kabul. For two years he has not returned to his village, a bus journey from the Afghan capital, for fear of the Taliban.

DOHA, Aug 16 (IPS) - The United Nations has ordered the end of its observer mission in Syria, and said that it would withdraw its staff within the next few days.

PIENDAMÓ, Colombia, Aug 16 (IPS) - Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos travelled to a native reserve in the southwest of the country Wednesday to meet with thousands of indigenous people who had gathered there for nearly a week, demanding an end to fighting in their territory.

WASHINGTON, Aug 16 (IPS) - Following two groundbreaking rulings in recent days by the Supreme Court of Mexico, rights campaigners here on Thursday expressed optimism that widely criticised military legal jurisdiction over cases of human rights violations in Mexico’s anti-drugs fight could soon be overturned.

OAKLAND, California, Aug 16 (IPS) - Haiti’s brutal army was disbanded in 1995, yet armed and uniformed paramilitaries, with no government affiliation, occupy former army bases today.

MATAM, Sénégal, Aug 16 (IPS) - Like many other young Senegalese, Pape Mokhtar Diallo long dreamed of escaping his rural home in northern Senegal for a better life. Three times he tried and failed to go overseas. But the establishment of an agricultural cooperative here in the village of Boyinadji has put another dream within his grasp.

KINSHASA, Aug 16 (IPS) - A rash of recent rape cases has sparked local criticism of the weakness of the justice system in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where inadequate resources and simple incompetence mean survivors of sexual violence hold little hope of obtaining justice.

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 16 (IPS) - Food rights activists from around the world will descend on the coastal U.S. state of Florida next week to protest homelessness and hunger facing millions of people in the United States and across the globe.

OAKLAND, California, Aug 16 (IPS) - Haiti’s brutal army was disbanded in 1995, yet armed and uniformed paramilitaries, with no government affiliation, occupy former army bases today.

PIENDAMÓ, Colombia, Aug 16 (IPS) - Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos travelled to a native reserve in the southwest of the country Wednesday to meet with thousands of indigenous people who had gathered there for nearly a week, demanding an end to fighting in their territory.