News headlines in July 2014, page 7

CASTRIES, St. Lucia, Jul 18 (IPS) - As unpredictable weather patterns impact water availability and quality in St. Lucia, the Caribbean island is moving to build resilience to climate-related stresses in its water sector.

MONTEVIDEO, Jul 18 (IPS) - While this week's BRICS summit might have been off the radar of Western powers, the leaders of its five member countries launched a financial system to rival Bretton Woods institutions and held an unprecedented meeting with the governments of South America.

WASHINGTON, Jul 17 (IPS) - Newly publicised internal documents suggest that U.S. negotiators are working to permanently block a landmark regulatory proposal in the European Union aimed at addressing climate change, and instead to force European countries to import particularly dirty forms of oil.

GENEVA, Jul 17 (IPS) - Framing rules at the World Trade Organization for maintaining public stockholding programmes for food security in developing countries is not an easy task, and for Ambassador Jayant Dasgupta, former Indian trade envoy to the WTO, "this is even more so when countries refuse to acknowledge the real problem and hide behind legal texts and interpretations in a slanted way to suit their interests."

FORTALEZA, Brazil, Jul 17 (IPS) - The creation of BRICS' (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) own financial institutions was "a disappointment" for activists from the five countries, meeting in this northeastern Brazilian city after the group's leaders concluded their sixth annual summit here.

NEW DELHI, Jul 17 (IPS) - According to census data released this month, a whopping 160 million women in India, 88 percent of who are of working age (15 to 59 years), are confined to their homes performing ‘household duties' rather than gainfully employed in the formal job sector.

NEW DELHI, Jul 17 (IPS) - The Sixth BRICS Summit which ended Wednesday in Fortaleza, Brazil, attracted more attention than any other such gathering in the alliance's short history, and not just from its own members – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

WASHINGTON, Jul 17 (IPS) - As the negotiations on the Iranian nuclear programme approach the Jul. 20 deadline, both U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif have signaled through their carefully worded statements that they are now moving toward toward agreement on the two most crucial issues in the talks: the level of Iranian enrichment capability to be allowed and the duration of the agreement.

FORTALEZA, Brazil, Jul 16 (IPS) - The BRICS alliance (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) launched the New Development Bank (NDB) and Contingency Reserve Arrangement (CRA) during its sixth summit, institutionalising a new financial architecture for the emerging powers.

WASHINGTON, Jul 16 (IPS) - "My cousin was a very successful and distinguished student. She said that she finished high school with excellent grades and enrolled in college, but a month later, her parents forced her to leave school and burned all her books and studying material. So, the girl set fire to herself."