News headlines in August 2012, page 16

RAMALLAH, Occupied West Bank, Aug 16 (IPS) - After the brutal murder of a Palestinian woman in late July in a busy Bethlehem marketplace, local human rights groups are pushing for stronger reforms to stem violence against women in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

NOUAKCHOTT, Aug 16 (IPS) - The building is standing empty now, but Fatimetou Mint M'Barkenni is looking forward to when it is again filled with the soft cheeping of day-old chicks. Earlier in the year, she raised a first batch of broiler chickens as part of a pilot project, to boost rural incomes and food security here at Bourate, in rural Mauritania.

WASHINGTON, Aug 16 (IPS) - Two recent interviews apparently given by Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak provide evidence that the new wave of reports in the Israeli press about a possible Israeli attack on Iran is a means by which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Barak hope to leverage a U.S. shift toward Israel’s red lines on Iran’s nuclear programme.

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 16 (IPS) - When Cuba chaired the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) back in 1979, Western nations dismissed the world's largest single political coalition as lacking legitimacy since Havana was considered a close ally of the then-Soviet Union.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Aug 16 (IPS) - A judicial order to halt construction of the Belo Monte dam in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest may be just one more battle in a long-drawn-out war in the courts over the controversial hydroelectric project.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Aug 16 (IPS) - A judicial order to halt construction of the Belo Monte dam in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest may be just one more battle in a long-drawn-out war in the courts over the controversial hydroelectric project.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Aug 15 (IPS) - A new law about to enter into effect in Brazil will reserve half of all admission slots in public universities for students who attended public primary and secondary schools. But the measure, aimed at expanding access to the country’s best universities, will require structural reforms.

DOHA, Qatar, Aug 15 (IPS) - The main Syrian rebel group has claimed responsibilty for a series of explosions in central Damascus near the hotel used by the U.N. observer mission in Syria.

ATME, Syria, Aug 15 (IPS) - As fighting rages on in Syria, thousands of civilians are fleeing the country with little more than their families and the clothes on their backs, seeking refuge on the Turkish-Syrian border.

DHAKA, Aug 15 (IPS) - Laboni Vhoumik’s lingerie manufacturing unit in the Gopai village of Noakhali district, about 180 km outside the capital, is a forceful argument in favour of the Grameen Bank microcredit model that fosters female entrepreneurship and also relies on it.