News headlines in 2013, page 123

NEW DELHI, Jun 14 (IPS) - India's environmental and food security activists who have so far succeeded in stalling attempts to introduce genetically modified (GM) food crops into this largely farming country now find themselves up against a bill in parliament that could criminalise such opposition.

MANAGUA, Jun 13 (IPS) - A five-century wait could come to an end when the Nicaraguan government grants a concession this year to a Chinese company to build a canal between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, despite local protests and international scepticism.

WASHINGTON, Jun 13 (IPS) - The nine judges of the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously Thursday that naturally occurring DNA, including component parts of that genetic material, cannot be patented.

SANTIAGO, Jun 13 (IPS) - The Latin American Centre for Rural Development (RIMISP) is promoting a method for assessing strategies, results, reach and impact of IFAD-funded agricultural projects targeting vulnerable groups in the region.

UXBRIDGE, Canada, Jun 13 (IPS) - Emerging economies such as Mexico and India are shifting energy investments into renewable resources while industrialised countries hesitate, noted two new United Nations reports released Wednesday in Nairobi, Kenya.

WASHINGTON, Jun 13 (IPS) - Experts here are stepping up calls for the U.S. government to remove Cuba from an official list of "state sponsors of terrorism", arguing that the country's presence on the list is anachronistic and makes neither legal nor political sense.

NEW YORK, Jun 13 (IPS) - It started for Ruth when she was 12 years old and for Lowyal when she was 13. After being raped by her mother's boyfriend, Ruth ran away from home and was picked up by a pimp, who sold her into prostitution.

UNITED NATIONS, Jun 13 (IPS) - With less than three years before a 2015 deadline, the developing world is largely expected to miss one of the U.N.'s key Millennium Development Goals (MDGs): halving the number of people living in extreme poverty and hunger.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Jun 13 (IPS) - Though the constant hum of unmanned aerial vehicles flying overhead makes a strong case for staying indoors, residents of Pakistan's North Waziristan Agency are emerging in droves from their humble homes, some no bigger than huts constructed from mud and stones.

MEXICO CITY, Jun 13 (IPS) - "We have to understand that information, above all else, is a social service. If we lose sight of that dimension we begin to regulate it as merchandise, but the state has many other obligations, such as to guarantee freedom," said Frank La Rue.