News headlines in 2015, page 123

GAZA CITY, Jan 17 (IPS) - The Israeli attacks that the Gaza Strip has suffered in recent years have left in their wake a large number of young people who have come up against a further barrier to their creative energies – physical disability caused by military aggression.

HAVANA, Jan 16 (IPS) - On Dec. 17, by freeing the five Cuban anti-terrorists who spent over 16 years in U.S. prisons, President Barack Obama repaired a longstanding injustice while changing the course of history.

NEW DELHI, Jan 16 (IPS) - Thirty-six-year-old Chameli Devi, a sex worker operating out of New Delhi's G.B. Road - Asia's largest red-light district, housing an estimated 12,000 of India's three million sex workers – is an unhappy woman these days.

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 15 (IPS) - Flogging a dead horse, as the old idiom goes, is far removed from flogging a live Saudi blogger.

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 15 (IPS) - Is below replacement level fertility the future for humanity? The answer to this seemingly simple question regarding human reproduction is not only of considerable demographic concern, but also has enormous social, economic and environmental consequences for the planet.

ZARAGOZA, Jan 15 (IPS) - Although African countries have been lauded for their efforts towards ensuring that people have access to safe drinking water in keeping with Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), they have nonetheless come under scrutiny for failure to prioritise water in their development agendas.

PARIS, Jan 15 (IPS) - In the wake of last week's attack on French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo that left 12 people dead, a heated battle of opinion is being waged in France and several other countries on the issue of freedom of expression and the rights of both media and the public.

MADHU, Sri Lanka, Jan 15 (IPS) - Jessi Jogeswaran, a 20-year-old woman from Sri Lanka's northern Jaffna district, waited over six hours with 18 friends in the sweltering heat just to get a glimpse of Pope Francis on Jan. 14.

SAN SALVADOR, Jan 15 (IPS) - The upcoming municipal and legislative elections in March and the hiring of former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani as a kind of anti-crime tzar are not the best equation for bringing down El Salvador's high murder rate, analysts say.

BINDO GOL, Pakistan, Jan 15 (IPS) - Khaliq-ul-Zaman, a farmer from the remote Bindo Gol valley in northern Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, has long lived under the shadow of disaster.