News headlines in 2010, page 7

Nepal may be doing well in providing complete primary education to boys and girls, but has quite a bit of catching up to do when it comes to ensuring that their schooling does not become a casualty during disasters and emergencies.

The life sentence handed down to former Argentine dictator Jorge Rafael Videla Wednesday was the culmination of a year marked by faster progress in trials of members of the armed forces accused of human rights violations committed during the country's 1976-1983 military regime.

U.S. President Barack Obama scored key wins Wednesday in both foreign policy and domestic politics Wednesday as more than the required two-thirds of the Senate - including 13 Republicans who defied their party's leadership - voted to ratify the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) with Russia.

The U.S. move to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan may be seen in Washington as the only effective and viable strategy to stabilise the country, but not everyone in the diplomatic community here at U.N. headquarters agrees.

Exports of fishmeal made from Peruvian anchoveta, or anchovy (Engraulis ringens), is so lucrative that fishers have sought -- and found -- legal shortcuts to obtain permits that would have been impossible through formal channels. This practice is exhausting even the contingency stock that the government had set aside.

In the countdown to her inauguration on Jan. 1, Brazilian President-elect Dilma Rousseff has completed her cabinet, which points to a government of continuity whose most novel aspect will be a greater female presence.

This week's leak to the New York Times of a proposal for U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF) raids against Afghan insurgent sanctuaries in Pakistan may be intended to put more pressure on the Pakistani military to take action against those sanctuaries.

This past September, world leaders meeting at the United Nations vowed to spend $40 billion over the next five years to save the lives of more than 16 million women and children dying of deadly diseases or lack of medical care, particularly during and after pregnancy.

Six months after the chaos surrounding security and policing at June's G20 leaders' summit in Toronto, there is little agreement about where the buck should stop.