News headlines in August 2010, page 15

For seven years Majda Abdul Qader Sheikh, 38, has not been allowed to visit the home of her parents, just a few hundred metres from her house.

The doctors at the hospital that Khalida Begum’s husband brought her to in the frontier district of Kupwara knew she was in a dangerous state. They thus recommended that she be transferred soonest to the maternity hospital here in Srinagar, where she was sure to receive far better care.

When the Colombian government announced in November that it had reached a deal to give the U.S. armed forces access to seven military bases, the news provoked surprise and protests, like when an unfair clause is discovered in a contract that was blindly signed.

The United Nations and other relief organisations will observe World Humanitarian Day Thursday amid steadily increasing attacks on aid workers.

Despite a bumper harvest of maize just a few months ago, many residents in the eastern part of Kenya are facing hunger and starvation. While granaries in the region may be full, the grain cannot be sold, let alone eaten.

The campaign for the October municipal elections in Peru has brought new hope to the badly weakened left, in the form of Susana Villarán, who has shot up from the 'other candidates' category to third in the polls in the race for the mayor's office in Lima.

An international campaign seeking a war crimes inquiry into the alleged systematic abuses by Burma’s military regime finally has a strong ally in U.S. President Barack Obama.

'I had a lump in my breast for a few years that I ignored [mainly because] it didn’t hurt. It’s so easy to try to deny illness,' says Tracey Derrick. When she finally went to see a doctor for a biopsy, she got a big shock. The result came back positive: breast cancer.

More than 400 homeless veterans from across northern California relaxed in comfort at the Alameda County Fairgrounds in Pleasanton.

Southern African leaders used the 30th Southern African Development Community (SADC) summit of government leaders to rally around Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe’s land seizures in a move that undermines regionalism while lamenting their own failure to implement their decisions on regional economic integration.