News headlines in 2013, page 46

MOGADISHU, Oct 04 (IPS) - Mukhatar Jama has been teaching at a secondary school in Mogadishu for the past decade. Religious education is part and parcel of the curriculum of all schools in Somalia, but he says most parents are unaware of exactly what their children are being taught – a radical form of Islam.

WASHINGTON, Oct 04 (IPS) - Israeli and Palestinian negotiators returned to the negotiating table on Thursday, ready to put claims by the United States that it will engage more forcefully in the negotiating process to the test.

WASHINGTON, Oct 03 (IPS) - Three days into the partial shutdown of the federal government, foreign policy mavens are voicing growing concern about the closure's impact on U.S. credibility overseas.

, Oct 03 (IPS) - Shortly after President Obama's startling telephone conversation with Iran's new president, Hassan Rouhani, a Saudi Arabian journalist wrote that "The phone call between Obama and Rouhani shocked the Gulf states, Jordan, Turkey, Israel, and other countries." No matter which president initiated the call, he wrote, "What is important to know is what stands behind the conversation and how deep the ties are between America and Iran."

UNITED NATIONS, Oct 03 (IPS) - The General Assembly's first-ever high-level meeting on nuclear disarmament closed last week on a predictable note: the longstanding proposal for the elimination of nuclear weapons remains firmly in the realm of political fantasy.

MEXICO CITY, Oct 03 (IPS) - Governments of countries that engage in large-scale electronic espionage, like the United States, and companies that develop spying software could theoretically face legal action for violating the Convention on Cybercrime.

BANGKOK, Oct 03 (IPS) - An exiled leader of the Rohingyas, a persecuted Muslim minority in Myanmar, is raising the alarm from his London office about the fate of his community. He fears "ethnocide to remove all references to the Rohingyas" if the first census in 30 years goes ahead in the Southeast Asian nation.

CAIRO, Oct 03 (IPS) - The young couple inspecting Dr Bassem Elhelw's Cairo Fertility Clinic knew what they wanted from him: a baby boy. They also knew they wanted the child by in vitro fertilisation (IVF).

UNITED NATIONS, Oct 02 (IPS) - The number of international migrants continues its inexorable climb even as reports of slave-like conditions continue to proliferate.

LISBON, Oct 02 (IPS) - Guinea Bissau is "close to becoming a failed state," but not due to ethnic or religious violence, which has never existed in that small West African nation, argues Nobel Peace laureate and United Nations envoy José Manuel Ramos-Horta.