News headlines in 2013, page 165

SAN FRANCISCO, California, Apr 23 (IPS) - Challenges are mounting to a key U.S. immigration enforcement programme that requires local police to share the fingerprints of individuals they arrest, triggering a federal investigation into the immigration status of the detainee.

MÁLAGA, Spain, Apr 23 (IPS) - A new mortgage bill approved by Spain's lower house of parliament would merely put a bandaid on the plight of people whose homes are being repossessed, and would not guarantee protection for most families facing eviction, activists complain.

GUWAHATI, India, Apr 23 (IPS) - It is as if they have given up hope of ever seeing their girls again. They are an Adivasi family from a remote village in Assam state in India, nestled in the Himalayan foothills. The picturesque surroundings belie the hollowness they feel within.

MASAFER YATTA, Occupied West Bank, Apr 23 (IPS) - A quiet diplomatic war is being waged by several European governments against the Israeli authorities, specifically the Israeli Civil Administration which controls the Israeli occupied West Bank.

BLANTYRE, Malawi, Apr 23 (IPS) - In Malawi, where the healthcare system frequently makes headlines for its shortages of drugs and medical workers, a fact that is often overlooked is that two out of four central hospitals do not have a specialist physician in attendance.

JOHANNESBURG, Apr 23 (IPS) - A young mother – who only wants to be identified as Karren – beamed as she nursed her newborn baby at the University of Witwatersrand's Reproductive Health and HIV Institute, in Hillbrow, South Africa. 

WASHINGTON, Apr 22 (IPS) - Civil liberties and human rights groups are applauding the White House's announcement Monday that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the lone surviving suspect in last week's bombing in Boston, will not be charged as an enemy combatant, as some conservative politicians here had been urging.

UNITED NATIONS, Apr 22 (IPS) - China, which has outranked Japan as the world's second largest economy and moved ahead of Russia as the world's second largest military spender, has hit the top spot in global tourism.

ASUNCION, Apr 22 (IPS) - Paraguay's right-wing Colorado Party, which ruled the country for 60 years until 2008, will return to power under President-elect Horacio Cartes, who won Sunday's presidential elections with a wide margin.

REYKJAVIK, Apr 22 (IPS) - Since the controversial Karahnjukar dam in East Iceland was brought into operation in 2006, conditions in the downstream Lagarfljot lake have become much worse, according to information gathered by the energy company Landsvirkjun. Some of the changes are irreversible, scientists say.