News headlines in 2010, page 55

Decades of government neglect, a corruption-racked penitentiary system and a growing wave of violent crime have combined to move El Salvador's prisons even further away from their stated purpose of rehabilitation while strengthening their role as veritable schools of crime.

A campaign to rid the world of cluster munitions has still to rope in the U.S. government, a major producer and stockpiler of the deadly payload, on the eve of a key global conference in Laos to ban its production and use.

You would expect to find children in the Vaal River outside Parys on a hot afternoon. But 28 of them, on the Gauteng side of the river, are not swimming; they are doing research for ORASECOM.

When Anarahim Laskar, a worker at Sealdah rail station, tripped and fell with while carrying a heavy head load in 2007, he could have easily shattered more than his hipbone.

A Swedish attempt to bridge conflicting historical narratives has failed to bring Israeli and Palestinian educators together in teaching the other side's views on history.

A series of bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs) is threatening the livelihoods of India's fishermen on the 8,000 km peninsular coastline - among the longest in the world - and the diets of millions of Indians for whom fish is a cheap source of protein.

Zambia's efforts to strengthen its education system will come to little if no way is found to retain skilled teachers like Caroline Chisenga.

With conservatives likely to be the biggest winners in Tuesday's U.S. congressional elections, efforts to achieve a more compassionate national immigration policy may be one of the biggest losers.

'It's painful to build an altar of offerings to your dead child,' Abraham Fraijo, one of the leading activists in a citizens' movement against violence and impunity in Mexico, wrote in his Twitter account while taking part in a series of protests during the celebrations of the Day of the Dead.

Education in Palestinian areas and the longing for a homeland were given a major boost over the weekend through the World Education Forum (WEF). The four-day education conference Oct. 28-31 was held in cities across the West Bank and in Gaza, as well as Lebanon.