News headlines in 2017, page 87

PENANG, Mar 15 (IPS) - Last year Uber started testing driver-less cars, with humans inside to make corrections in case something goes wrong. If the tests go well, Uber will presumably replace their present army of drivers with fleets of the new cars.

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 14 (IPS) - A new UN initiative launched on Monday night calls the women's pay gap, which sees women paid 23 percent less than men globally: "the biggest robbery in history."

SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Mar 14 (IPS) - Recent disturbing trends in international finance have particularly problematic implications, especially for developing countries. The recently released United Nations report, World Economic Situation and Prospects 2017 (WESP 2017) is the only recent report of a multilateral inter-governmental organization to recognize these problems, especially as they are relevant to the financing requirements for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

JAKARTA, Mar 14 (IPS) - The Indonesian government is tapping children as advocates against child marriage in this Southeast Asian country where over 340,000 girls get married before they reach 18 years old every year.

ALICANTE, Spain, Mar 14 (IPS) - Wikipedia has much to offer under "aging". Highly recommended are the 10 points by the world's oldest living man, 114, Walter Breuning.

PARIS, Mar 14 (IPS) - Laura Alcoba is an Argentine-born writer and translator who lives in Paris, France. Her first book, Manèges (The Rabbit House), described Argentina's "Dirty War" of the 1970s from a child's perspective, when even the very young knew what could happen "if your political sympathies drew the attention of the dictatorial military regime". Thousands were killed, tortured, and abducted, and many names remain among "los desaparecidos".

ROME, Mar 13 (IPS) - The suffering of children in war-torn Syria "hit rock bottom" in 2016 with the highest number of grave violations against them since verification began in 2014, underscored the United Nations children's agency.

ROME, Mar 13 (IPS) - New evidence is deepening scientific fears, advanced few years ago, that the Middle East and North Africa risk becoming uninhabitable in a few decades, as accessible fresh water has fallen by two-thirds over the past 40 years.

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 13 (IPS) - Just this year, public and private stakeholders from around the globe marked the one-year anniversary of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The milestone served as an important reminder of the fifteen-year framework that is now in place.

ROME/GENEVA, Mar 13 (IPS) - Long decades of violence in the Middle East and Northern Africa, resulting from the proliferation of international and local conflicts, have strained the social fabric that once held peaceful Arab societies together, says a Geneva-based think tank promoting global dialogue.