News headlines in 2012, page 15

EL ALTO, Bolivia, Dic 07 (IPS) - Every morning from 6:00 to 8:00 AM, native people in this sprawling working-class suburb of La Paz, Bolivia listen to the programme broadcast by former education minister Donato Ayma in the Aymara language.

OAKLAND, California, Dic 07 (IPS) - Better known as drones, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles piloted by military in the U.S. hunt and kill suspected enemy combatants abroad. Now the drones are coming home to beef up local law enforcement.

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, Dic 07 (IPS) - For 21 days Wayne Kublalsingh sat in the scorching sun outside the office of Prime Minister Kamla Persad Bissessar. He sat in support of his belief that constructing a highway in southern Trinidad would damage the environment and affect hundreds of lives in the surrounding area.

DOHA, Qatar, Dic 07 (IPS) - Food prices will soar and hundreds of millions will starve without urgent action to make major cuts in fossil fuel emissions. That is what is at stake here on the last day of the U.N. climate talks known as COP 18, scientists and activists say.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Dic 07 (IPS) - "Canjinjin has special powers," said Deize Coelho de Barros. The recipe for this local liquor, made from a mixture of herbs, was handed down from her African ancestors, and is seen as a sort of traditional "Viagra" in her homeland, the western Brazilian state of Mato Grosso.

BERLIN, Dic 07 (IPS) - With a persistent undercurrent of discrimination against foreigners, ‘Gastarbeiter' (guest workers) and citizens of colour, despite the fact that 20 percent of its population - roughly 16 million residents - are from an immigrant background, Germany is faced with the urgent task of rethinking its ambivalence towards diversity.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Dic 07 (IPS) - The Taliban's ruthless campaign against security forces has demoralised the forces, who are unable to put up a strong resistance to Islamic militants.

DAKAR, Dic 07 (IPS) - Farmers in Médina Yoro Foula, in Senegal's southern Kolda region, are expecting a good grain harvest this year, and hope to sell thousands of tonnes of grain in the local and regional markets.

WASHINGTON, Dic 07 (IPS) - Iran is unlikely to agree to curb its nuclear programme unless the U.S. and its Western allies are prepared to ease tough economic sanctions imposed against the Islamic Republic over the past decade, according to a major new report signed by more than three dozen former top U.S. foreign-policy makers, military officers, and independent experts.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Dic 06 (IPS) - A new kind of public-private partnership will begin in 2013 in Brazil to produce an antiretroviral drug, through a technology transfer agreement that will be in effect until the patent expires in 2017.