News headlines in 2013, page 43

WASHINGTON, Oct 10 (IPS) - World Bank President Jim Kim has formally put forward a major new proposal to refocus both the bank's priorities and how it pursues those aims.

WASHINGTON, Oct 09 (IPS) - Authorities in the southern state of Texas are refusing to return lethal injection drugs purchased from two compounding pharmacies, despite calls from the firms not to use their substances for executions.

HAVANA, Oct 09 (IPS) - You can't buy it in a store or get it in Cuba's public health clinics. But young men who frequent gyms know who sells it and secretly inject themselves with "peanut oil," as people in this country refer to synthol and other products that increase muscle mass.

COLOMBO, Oct 09 (IPS) - Stricter laws could curb the rising trend of child abuse in Sri Lanka, experts say. However, recommendations like witness protection, special courts and procedures to hear abuse cases and more legal assistance to victims are unlikely to be included in a new draft Child Protection Policy that is to be presented to parliament before the end of the year.

IDLIB/ALEPPO Provinces, Syria, Oct 09 (IPS) - Free Syrian Army fighters stand guard over the state cable company premises to avoid looting in Khan Al-Assal, a district 14 kilometres west of Aleppo. Much of the rest of the place seems a nightmarish ghost town.

NANTES, France, Oct 08 (IPS) - One evening in the small village of Ashton Hayes in Cheshire, England, someone started a conversation about climate change and energy at the local pub. It was 2005. Two years later, residents had cut their carbon dioxide emissions and energy costs by 20 percent.

SANTIAGO, Oct 08 (IPS) - The mining industry in the north of Chile, the world's leading producer of copper, is trying to partially satisfy its insatiable appetite for energy with a renewable, ever-available source: the sun.

UNITED NATIONS, Oct 08 (IPS) - Despite adopting scores of pious resolutions on gender empowerment over the last 67 years, the 193-member General Assembly has failed to practice in its own backyard what it has vigourously preached to the outside world.

WASHINGTON, Oct 08 (IPS) - A week that began with a blistering denunciation by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu of Iranian duplicity ended with diminished prospects for Israel to take direct action to address Iran's nuclear capabilities.

NAIROBI, Oct 08 (IPS) - Somali militia groups are beginning to operate in Kenya's remote and arid North Eastern Province, an area that borders southern Somalia – a former stronghold of the extremist group Al-Shabaab.