News headlines in 2013, page 178

PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Apr 05 (IPS) - The Taliban may have placed a ban on theatre, but women in Pakistan's northern provinces won't allow the threat of the militants' reprisals to keep them off the stage.

, Apr 05 (IPS) - Susan Sithole* is 14 and should be in grade nine or Form Two, according to Zimbabwe's education system, learning her lessons in Mathematics, English and other subjects.

WASHINGTON, Apr 05 (IPS) - While the tenth anniversary last month of Washington's invasion of Iraq provoked overwhelmingly negative reviews of the adventure except among its most die-hard neo-conservative proponents, a more recent - albeit far less dramatic and costly - intervention has faded almost completely from public notice.

WASHINGTON, Apr 05 (IPS) - Following last week's approval of U.S. Senate bills that critics say would weaken a major financial reform law known as Dodd-Frank, watchdog groups here are cautioning that banks deemed "too big to fail" still pose a risk to U.S. and international economic security.

WASHINGTON, Apr 04 (IPS) - A first-time ranking of 54 top research universities in the United States and Canada has found that a miniscule percentage of funding goes to neglected diseases, despite the outsized influence that public universities play in developing medicines for illnesses often ignored by the private sector.

ALMATY, Apr 04 (IPS) - With talks over Iran's nuclear ambitions set to resume Apr. 5 in Almaty, Kazakhstan, there is guarded optimism that negotiators can build on the moderate breakthroughs made in discussions held earlier this year.

PORT-LOUIS, Apr 04 (IPS) - Residents of Albion, a small village in Pointe-aux-Caves, western Mauritius, say that by opposing the construction of a new coal power plant near their homes, they are defending their constitutional right to live.

DOHA, Apr 04 (IPS) - French senators have begun examining a controversial bill to legalise same-sex marriage and adoption, prompting protests by opponents keen to see the reform thrown out.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Apr 04 (IPS) - While Jean Reniteau mulls over the idea of using solar panels to light his house, Frantz Fanfan is wondering how to expand production of biomass briquettes to replace the use of charcoal in the cooking stoves of most of the Haitian people, who lack electricity.