News headlines in August 2012, page 7

GAZA CITY, Aug 27 (IPS) - Mai Ahmed, a 26–year-old from the West Bank fell in love over the Internet with Mohammed Warda from Nussirat refugee camp in Gaza after they ‘met’ on the Internet. The Israeli government refused permission for her to travel to Gaza. Mai travelled to Jordan, flew from there to Egypt, drove across the Sinai, and then crossed through a tunnel into Gaza, where she now lives. “It’s a story I will tell my grandchildren,” she says.

MANILA, Aug 27 (IPS) - This year’s floods, one of the worst in Philippine history, destroyed a staggering 57 million dollars worth of crops, pushing  this climate vulnerable country to implement disaster risk reduction measures.

WASHINGTON, Aug 27 (IPS) - The attack on a Sikh temple in Wisconsin in early August on the heels of the shooting at a movie theatre in Aurora, Colorado signals the rise of right-wing domestic terrorism in the United States, experts say.

JERUSALEM, Aug 26 (IPS) - In a hamlet of the occupied West Bank, the testimony goes, Israeli troops chase a Palestinian child. “He was about two metres away – the company commander cocked his weapon in his face...The kid fell on the ground, crying and begging for his life.” 

SAN SALVADOR, Aug 25 (IPS) - The two main youth gangs in El Salvador and the government have exchanged the main points they would like to discuss in talks aimed at bringing to an end to two decades of spiraling criminal violence. But the media, legislators and the public at large remain hostile to the possible start of negotiations.

KARACHI, Pakistan, Aug 25 (IPS) - With Pakistan’s last major stands of deodar (cedar) threatened by a ‘timber mafia’, the local people in the Chitral district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province are resorting to direct action to stop the denudation of their picturesque alpine homeland.

KARACHI, Pakistan, Aug 25 (IPS) - With Pakistan’s last major stands of deodar (cedar) threatened by a ‘timber mafia’, the local people in the Chitral district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province are resorting to direct action to stop the denudation of their picturesque alpine homeland.

CAIRO, Aug 25 (IPS) - The former regime of Hosni Mubarak tightly controlled the press and intimidated journalists who dared to criticise it. Now it appears the Muslim Brotherhood has adopted similar tactics to stifle dissent.

JUBA, Aug 25 (IPS) - South Sudanese soldiers are allegedly beating and torturing civilians in the midst of a disarmament campaign in Jonglei state, and many have been unable to access justice because of a lack of prosecutors and judges, according to the United Nations and Human Rights Watch. 

SAN SALVADOR, Aug 25 (IPS) - The two main youth gangs in El Salvador and the government have exchanged the main points they would like to discuss in talks aimed at bringing to an end to two decades of spiraling criminal violence. But the media, legislators and the public at large remain hostile to the possible start of negotiations.