News headlines in 2014, page 153

WASHINGTON, Jan 29 (IPS) - Even as the United States and European Union begin to lift some sanctions on Iran, U.S. law continues to prohibit some businesses that provide non-controversial services, such as online education, from operating in Iran and other countries.

WASHINGTON, Jan 29 (IPS) - The subtitle of Gareth Porter's new book, "The Untold Story of the Iran Nuclear Scare," is well-chosen. Large parts of "A Manufactured Crisis" are indeed untold till now. They amount to what the author terms an "alternative narrative".

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 29 (IPS) - As violence rips through South Sudan and ongoing conflict plagues the Central African Republic and Syria, developing countries stand at a difficult crossroads – struggling to grow economically and politically, yet fielding deep inequalities within their own borders.

, Jan 29 (IPS) - Last July, authorities in Tajikistan confiscated the only manuscript of a little-known novelist's latest book. In what can only be described as an Orwellian sequence, after the manuscript was seized at a Dushanbe printing house, the author was hauled in for interrogation and asked questions like, "who ordered you to write this book?"

NAIROBI, Jan 29 (IPS) - In early January 2008, during the violence that rocked Kenya after disputed general elections, a man knocked at Lucia Wakonyo's gate at Mathare Valley, in the sprawling Mathare slum. 

SYDNEY, Jan 29 (IPS) - Long-term dependence on development aid in Pacific Island nations, many of which have been independent for 30-40 years, continues to cause concern.

EL RASHID, Egypt, Jan 29 (IPS) - It only takes a light covering of seawater to render land infertile, so Mohamed Saeed keeps a close watch on the sea as it advances year after year towards his two-hectare plot of land. The young farmer, whose clover field lies just 400 metres from Egypt's northern coast, reckons he has less than a decade before his field – and livelihood – submerges beneath the sea.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jan 28 (IPS) - Nearly every day, violence breaks out in a Brazilian prison. In January the focus has been on the northeastern state of Maranhão, where orders issued from behind bars wreaked havoc in the streets of its capital city, illustrating the scope of national prison anarchy.

WASHINGTON, Jan 28 (IPS) - Advocacy groups and some legislators are calling on the U.S. government to mandate an increase in corporate supply chain transparency, with the aim of cutting down on the estimated 14,000 to 17,000 people trafficked into the United States each year and the tens of millions enslaved globally.

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, Jan 28 (IPS) - Despite having an abundance of wind and sunshine, Caribbean countries have found that going green is requiring significant shifts in policy, and most importantly, significant financing.