News headlines in 2010, page 71

While scores of international observers wait on tenterhooks for the first election in Burma in two decades - and one of only three multiparty elections in 60 years — a report by the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights there suggests that the world need not wait for Nov. 7 to judge the outcome.

The publication of a motherlode of secret field reports from the Iraq War are shining a bright light on heretofore unknown or underreported suspicions about the power of private security contractors and the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by their fellow Iraqis, often with their U.S. military counterparts 'turning a blind eye'.

Inadequate access to water, recurring floods and droughts as well as a lack of political will to invest in small-scale agriculture perpetuate hunger across Africa, the continent’s food security experts say.

It is break time at the Victory Chapel School in Congo Town. Children dressed in their royal blue uniforms with bright yellow and white trim fight to get under the shade of the only mango tree in the yard. It is the start of the dry season and the scorching sun will soon be almost unbearable to stand in.

The setting sun creates long shadows on the pavement in the crowded Del Safari neighbourhood in the southwest of Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. Casting the shadows are young people playing percussion instruments or children breakdancing or performing daring skateboard jumps.

As he left a workshop in the Nicaraguan capital about gender equality, Alejandro Silva was forced to confront a show of machismo, ironically, with his fists. He was attacked by classmates who taunted him that he was gay.

Allocating just one percent of GDP to social protection could make a massive difference to the lives of the continent’s poorest children.

Reports over the past 10 days of high-level talks between the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai and senior representatives of the Taliban have spurred growing speculation here about whether Washington is looking for a speedy exit to the longest foreign war in its history.

Fears of becoming a narco-state have prompted Honduras to refocus its anti-drug strategy, in order to block the infiltration of Mexican drug cartels, which are moving southward into Central America, experts told IPS.

Some 1.3 million people have lived in makeshift camps throughout Port-au-Prince since the January earthquake devastated the city. Living conditions are 'appalling', according a recent report by Refugees International.