News headlines in 2010, page 376

'Passport Please.' That's what everyone thought they'd ask if you queued up at that exclusive new ice cream shop in one of those smart new malls of fashionable south Delhi.

While the BASIC bloc countries - Brazil, South Africa, India and China - will submit their plans for voluntary mitigation actions by the Jan. 31 deadline stipulated by the Copenhagen Accord, they have taken care to emphasise that the agreement, reached at the end of the December climate change summit in the Danish capital, has no legal basis.

'It is a fact that global warming is happening. If the Arctic Sea ice is melting, how can the Himalayan glaciers not be melting?' glaciologist Syed Iqbal Hasnain asked indignantly.

On the eve of a major international conference on Afghanistan, senior U.S. and British officials are hinting that they are more open to a political settlement with elements of the Taliban than at any time since Washington helped oust it from power nine years ago.

A call issued by social movements to evolve towards a more active role in generating concrete action marked the opening session of a seminar assessing the 10 years of the World Social Forum (WSF) Monday in this southern Brazilian city, the birthplace of the annual global civil society gathering.

Twelve thousand people working on Côte d'Ivoire's banana plantations face uncertainty as the European Union begins implementing a new agreement governing tariffs on bananas.

U.S. President Barack Obama has delivered his plans for far-reaching banking and financial industry reforms, which mark a noticeable shift to the left in the administration's domestic policy and an acknowledgement of the public anger at Wall Street for its role in the financial crisis.

As international attention turns to the long-term reconstruction of earthquake-stricken Haiti, U.N. officials pledged that the Haitian government would have full involvement and authority over the process.

The seizure of large commercial farms - almost all white-owned - has continued despite the formation of a unity government in Zimbabwe. The country's farm workers say they are the biggest losers.

It was as if she had only closed her eyes for a moment. When Wendy Iriepa came round after surgery over a year ago, she tried to get up as if nothing had happened, but a nurse gently pushed her back into bed. 'All done?' she asked, and the nurse replied, 'Yes.'