News headlines in 2010, page 370

'Society and Governments: debates and alternatives for a post-crisis world' is the name of a Thematic World Social Forum meeting being held in the capital of the northeastern Brazilian state of Bahia.

A 45-million-dollar programme funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) that has been in place for nearly two years in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) has failed to develop local government agencies to ensure delivery of basic services, according to an audit by USAID's inspector general.

The road to the world’s first tiger summit in Vladivostok later this year will have to be paved with answers about the future of tiger farms in China and other East Asian countries, said conservationists.

Cuba, which has major reserves of zeolite, aims to boost exploitation of the mineral, whose properties and uses in products and technologies contribute to protecting the environment.

The World Social Forum (WSF) 'changed our lives,' although it continues to be 'machista,' with men significantly outnumbering women in its organisation and almost all discussion panels, commented Nalu Farias, coordinator in Brazil of the World March of Women.

The World Social Forum held in Nairobi in 2007 inspired Sierra Leonean activists to organise themselves to demand things like housing, health care and greater accountability from their government. That inspiration was not sustained.

The pledge by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to provide 10 billion dollars over 10 years on vaccines aimed at reducing child mortality in the world's poorest countries was hailed by global health organisations around the world Friday.

Every morning Pepe Julian Onziema wakes up not knowing if she will live to see another rising sun. Onziema is transgender and she lives in fear for her life because of a national campaign criminalising gay people.

In a surprisingly swift move on Thursday night that could have wide-ranging implications, the U.S. Senate passed a bill containing broad unilateral sanctions to punish foreign companies that export gasoline to Iran or help expand its domestic refinery capabilities.

'Why is the government, which is so generous towards the richest sectors of the economy, so stingy towards the displaced?' asked activist Marco Romero at the presentation of a new report on the dire situation faced by the millions of Colombians who have been forced out of their rural homes by the country's nearly half-century old armed conflict.