News headlines in 2010, page 74

Rising opposition is likely to block the passage of a bill giving voting rights to foreign nationals who have permanent residency in Japan — even though the majority of this group has been born here.

Pakistan’s recent catastrophic floods has had many alternately worried and depressed, but the indigenous community that calls the mudflats between the creeks of the Indus delta home has been having a decidedly far different reaction.

Decades of shifting cultivation by rural farmers have threatened forests in the district of Karonga in northern Malawi. The loss of forest cover has also threatened the livelihood of Benjamin Kalowekamo, a herbalist who depends on local plants to mix his healing concoctions.

With one death and several injured to show for it, two regions in southern Peru remain tangled in conflict over water from one of the country's main rivers. A project would divert some of the river's flow from the Cuzco region to neighbouring Arequipa.

On the eve of U.S. President Barack Obama's maiden voyage to India early next month, an influential think tank is calling for 'a bold leap forward' in ties between the two nations.

Amidst fears of a recurring food crisis, the World Bank has reactivated its Global Food Crisis Response Programme (GFRP), dedicating up to 760 million dollars to countries at risk of food price volatility.

Seventeen-year-old Jason* wants to be a pilot and his 14-year-old foster sister, Gracie*, wants to be a lawyer. In the impoverished district of Rehoboth, south of Windhoek, dreams such as these do not always come true.

As the United Nations commemorates the 10th anniversary of a landmark Security Council resolution (1325) on the protection of women in war zones, a new study details the successes and failures of a long-drawn-out effort to battle gender-based violence and provide women a key role in male-dominated peacekeeping and peace-building operations.

The U.S.-led invasion and then occupation of Iraq brought a sharp setback to the rights of women in that country, UNFPA head Thoraya Obaid tells IPS in an interview.

At a time when more and more women around the world are taking up jobs in male-dominated domains, 41-year-old Sithabile Ruswa is also making her mark, albeit far from the air-conditioned boardrooms usually reported on.