News headlines in 2010, page 371

Television viewers in the United States seeking international news are starting to switch over to foreign channels to learn what is happening in the outside world, media watchers here say.

The United Nations is predicting that the world's developing nations will recover faster than industrial countries - even as they both try to struggle out of the post-2007 global financial crisis.

The elimination of racism remains unfinished business in Cuba today. 'We have to admit that the problem exists, determine its impact on the social model that we defend, and tackle it in depth,' says Esteban Morales, an Afro-Cuban economist, political scientist and author of numerous articles and essays on the subject.

Salidhana village, a mere blip on the vast and arid landscape of India’s central state of Madhya Pradesh, was devoid of life’s most basic necessity — water. Until last year, there was no well in this hamlet of about a hundred families. Women would trudge hours daily to fetch water from distant areas, often losing their balance on the hilly village’s treacherous slopes.

Biodiversity, already decaying fast as a result of climate change and intensive farming, is under further threat by genetic modification (GM) of seeds, says a leading German ecological activist.

The testimonies of women who survived sexual violence during post-election conflict in 2008 should be heard, say advocates. The magnitude of the crimes committed against women because of their gender must be recorded and prosecuted to prevent such violence from occurring again.

The same kind of worldwide solidarity that helped bring down apartheid is necessary to free the global South from economic domination.

Palestinian politics are at an impasse. The four-year term of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) ended on Jan. 25 with no new elections planned. Presidential elections, meant to be held last year, were also postponed indefinitely.

Now that the electorate has given its verdict, Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse’s victory in the just concluded presidential polls sends an ominous signal to the minority people of the island state.

Democratising economics as well as politics is essential for ending irrationality and discrimination as part of the struggle for social and environmental justice, said participants at one of the panels of the seminar assessing the World Social Forum's (WSF) first 10 years.