News headlines in 2013, page 117

ZURICH, Switzerland, Jun 20 (IPS) - Once more, Swiss voters have lashed out against asylum seekers, further tightening the country's already strict asylum law. The government has meanwhile announced a radical restructuring of the asylum procedure.

MOGADISHU, Jun 20 (IPS) - Seven-year-old Istar Mumin lies on a bed, motionless, in one of the rooms of her family home in Mogadishu's Hamarweyne district. She has just gone through the horrifying ritual of "the cut," which was carried out by a local Somali nurse.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jun 20 (IPS) - Yves Norodom, a 21-year-old refugee from the Democratic Republic of Congo living in Brazil, is one of 45.2 million displaced people around the world – the largest number in 20 years.

WASHINGTON, Jun 19 (IPS) - Reactions have been mixed to President Barack Obama's call for greater nuclear arms reductions in the United States and Russia, made during his speech in Berlin on Wednesday.

TARAWA, Kiribati, Jun 19 (IPS) - A growing chorus of politicians, scientists and environmentalists are urging President Anote Tong of Kiribati to actually do what he claims was already done in 2008: create the world's most effective marine protected area in a remote archipelago in the Central Pacific Ocean.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jun 19 (IPS) - The powerful tractors and other farm machinery that landowners recently used to block roads at a dozen points from north to south in Brazil illustrated the economic clout of big agriculture, which rose up against the demarcation of indigenous reserves.

COLOMBO, Jun 19 (IPS) - The Monetary Board of Sri Lanka's Central Bank, tasked with keeping the island's economy on an even keel, does not only keep tabs on exchange rates, gold prices and inflation – it also has an eye on a less obvious indicator of economic stability: water levels in the country's main reservoirs.

ROME, Jun 19 (IPS) - Since food and water are so closely interlinked, there is a lingering fear based on the assumption, if there is no water, there will be no food.

KIBBUTZ EIN ZIVAN, Israeli-Occupied Golan Heights, Jun 19 (IPS) - It all happened within ten days – Syria's civil war fought metres away from Israeli orchards abutting the ceasefire line; Austrian peacekeepers hastily evacuating the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) that separates Israel from Syria; fears of a total collapse of the UN Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF). All while the cherry-picking season is at its peak.

MASVINGO, Zimbabwe, Jun 19 (IPS) - A newborn baby lets out a feeble cry as midwife Anna Mungara tends to a small wound on its head, at the provincial hospital in Masvingo, a town in southeast Zimbabwe.