News headlines in September 2010, page 4

Thirteen leading international economists and development specialists called here Tuesday for a major reform of the governing body of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the way it does business.

Mexico has suffered a setback in terms of government transparency and access to public information, according to Thomas Blanton and Kate Doyle, experts with the Washington-based National Security Archive (NSA).

At the U.N.'s annual weeklong cacophony of back-to-back speeches held to open its new General Assembly session, certain things can be counted on: the flouting of time limits, offensive rants (and subsequent walkouts by insulted parties) and, for longer than the last third of the world body's existence, the mention of Security Council reform.

A week after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told heads of state gathered for the U.N. General Assembly in New York that his government does not jail its citizens for expressing their opinions, Iran's Revolutionary Court sentenced Hossein Derakhshan, an internationally known Iranian-Canadian blogger, to 19 and a half years in prison.

Heartened by the passage of a same-sex marriage law in Argentina, women's organisations in this South American country stepped up their demands for the legalisation of abortion, on the Day for the Decriminalisation of Abortion in Latin America and the Caribbean.

The number of pregnant women being tested for HIV and accessing treatment in Sub-Saharan Africa has shown significant progress — indicating that virtual elimination of mother-to-child transmission of the virus by 2015 is possible.

With a recent study warning that the Caribbean could lose six percent of its Gross Domestic Product annually to the ravages of climate change, some experts say that a combination of adaptation funding and risk pooling is the region's best hope for the future.

Although the world will miss the 2010 deadline for universal access to HIV treatment, some countries, notably in sub- Saharan Africa, have made real strides forward, three United Nations agencies reported Tuesday.

Election-year interparty political wrangling is threatening to again sabotage congressional efforts to provide medical help for tens of thousands of firefighters and other first responders whose health was damaged by the Sep. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York's World Trade Centre.

Organisations raising funds to benefit the Israeli army and illegal settlements in the West Bank enjoy tax-exempt status in Europe, an IPS investigation has shown.