News headlines in 2014, page 82

MYMENSINGH, Bangladesh, Jun 24 (IPS) - There was a time when four-year-old Taiba, a resident of Makril village in Bangladesh's central Netrokona district, had little to smile about.

ISTANBUL, Jun 24 (IPS) - "Being an atheist isn't something you can easily express in Turkey," says Sinem Köroğlu, a member of the Atheism Association, the first official organisation for atheists in the country. "It's becoming more difficult with the current government as well," she adds.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jun 24 (IPS) - The FIFA World Cup being played in Brazil has sounded a warning for organisations fighting exploitation of children and adolescents, during an event that has attracted 3.7 million tourists to the 12 host cities.

WASHINGTON, Jun 23 (IPS) - The environmental cost of the plastics used by corporations producing consumer goods likely mounts to more than 75 billion dollars a year, according to a first-time valuation released Monday by the United Nations and others.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Jun 23 (IPS) - Shaukat Ali, a shopkeeper originally hailing from Miramshah in the Northern Waziristan Agency of Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), looks exhausted as he sits outside a makeshift shelter with his family of 10.

EL PALOMAR, Bolivia, Jun 23 (IPS) - Maria Eugenia Calle, a local official in this Andean agricultural community, recently saw the Internet for the first time.

KIGALI, Jun 23 (IPS) - Before Rwanda's 1994 genocide, Salaam Uwamariya's husband, a professor, was the family breadwinner, providing for her and their eight children. Uwamariya sold vegetables at a nearby market to supplement their income.

NIZAMABAD, India, Jun 22 (IPS) - At 32, Nalluri Poshani looks like an old woman. Squatting on the floor amidst piles of tobacco and tree leaves that she expertly transforms into ‘beedis', a local cigarette, she tells IPS, "I feel dizzy. The tobacco gives me headaches and nausea."

DAKAR, Jun 22 (IPS) - While the cement factories in Senegal are at war, ostensibly over the environmental impact one company will have on this West African nation, experts have cautioned that as the government plans to radically develop and industrialise the country, striking a balance between environmental protection and development will be key.

WASHINGTON, Jun 21 (IPS) - Despite their ubiquity on television talk shows and newspaper op-ed pages, neo-conservatives and other hawks who propelled the U.S. into war in Iraq 11 years ago are falling short in their efforts to persuade the public and Congress that Washington needs to return.