News headlines in March 2011, page 29

India’s Supreme Court has questioned clearances to industries on the basis of environment impact assessments (EIAs) carried out by private consultants in the pay of project proponents.

It was just past 9 p.m. of Feb. 1 when guards of the Ernakulam-Shornur train found 23-year-old Soumya, an accountant, unconscious near the railway tracks at Vettikkattiri in Thrissur district, Kerala state.

'We have had enough of the training given to us in cooking, sewing and household works… We now have another dream: of participating actively in the development of our island at decision-making level,' says Marie-Anne Laganne, a political trainer at Women In Politics.

Despite an ongoing dialogue between U.S. officials, human rights groups and Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh regarding concerns over the use of lethal force to quell anti- government protests throughout the Persian Gulf state, the death toll continues to rise in Yemen's port city of Aden and in other locations.

The past-due leader of this resource-rich African nation remains bent on clinging to power, despite calls by his opposition and the wider international community to leave office immediately.

As the tide of battle appeared to shift for the first time Thursday in favour of forces loyal to Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi, the United States and its European allies moved closer toward intervening - if not yet militarily - on the side of the insurgency.

Ali Abdullah Saleh, Yemen's president, has promised to put a new constitution to a referendum this year and move the country to a 'parliamentary system' but opponents say the move fails to meet the demands of anti-government protesters.

Female Palestinian prisoners detained in Israel are often denied legal representation and medical care while being housed in squalid conditions that can include sharing cells with rodents.

The absence of more open social policies and real citizen participation are some of the concerns being debated in the run-up to the Sixth Congress of the ruling Cuban Communist Party (PCC) in April.

The mass exodus of immigrant workers from Libya is aggravating the social and economic situation in the migrants’ home nations - from Sudan and Chad in sub-Saharan Africa, to Bangladesh in Asia - according to labour and economic experts.