News headlines in 2010, page 381

The Indian government’s grant of the final environmental clearance to a Korean giant firm, allowing it to acquire 3,000 acres of ‘forest lands’ in the eastern state of Orissa, has prompted a fresh spate of protests from more than 4,000 families that will be affected by a proposed mining project.

Despite appeals by human rights organisation to the Bangladesh government to end extrajudicial killings in the country, no steps have been taken to bring the perpetrators to justice.

An unprecedented 28 percent of seats in Bolivia's new parliament will soon be occupied by women. Female lawmakers have already launched a battle for women to serve in half the posts in the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government.

Tuesday's loss by the Democrats of their 60th Senate seat has raised serious questions about the outlook for the White House's policy agenda and spurred a rash of finger-pointing among Democrats over who bears responsibility for the very public rebuke issued by Massachusetts voters.

Abusive governments around the world escalated their attacks against local human rights defenders and other independent monitors during 2009, according to the 2010 edition of Human Rights Watch's annual 'World Report' released here Wednesday.

Barely a month after world leaders gathering in Copenhagen reached a weak accord on climate change, the European Union's top polluters are fighting a fresh battle to dissuade policy-makers from taking more robust action.

An old rite is long overdue in Paul Yugusak Tombe’s home village, in Central Equatoria State, south Sudan.

Charity Mwansa, a former minister and member of parliament, knows just exactly what being one of the very few female politicians in Zambia means. When she left politics it had nothing to with not being able to do the work and instead had everything to do with the mad world of male-dominated politics.

Sri Lanka’s nearly three decades of civil war may be over, but questions about war crimes and gross human rights violations committed during the final stages of that battle in 2009 continue to haunt the South Asian nation.

'I want justice. That will be a kind of peace,' says Micaela, a 40-year-old woman from the Andean region of Peru who is a survivor of the sexual violence prevalent during the 1980-2000 civil war. Twenty-five years ago, soldiers assaulted her at a military base and in her own home.