News headlines in June 2011, page 10

The sectarian crisis and recent violence by extremist groups, like the Jun. 16 bomb blast on the Nigerian Police Headquarters, are borne out of anger at prevailing economic conditions rather than religion, analysts say.

For decades, the former Yugoslavia was a communist country with a human face, whose nations enjoyed high standards of living compared to other Eastern Europeans, visa-free travel abroad, and participatory government. Twenty years ago, on Jun. 25, all that ended.

Since last December, when resolution 65/189 was finally approved, June 23 has been recognized as the day to pay tribute to widows. And that is the aim of the first International Widows' Day meeting, held Thursday at the United Nations. The occasion brought together a distinguished panel organized by Michelle Bachelet, Executive Director of UN Women, and Sylvia Bongo Ondimba, First Lady of Gabon.

One winter morning in central Cape Town, despite the gale force wind and the threat of rain, Jacques Sibomana, who was going to be ‘up and down the city all day’, decided he’d rather cycle than brace against the wind on foot.

Twenty-eight-year-old Yushi Sato washes cars for a living, but they are no ordinary cars. Every day, Sato hoses down vehicles contaminated with radiation from the Fukushima Nuclear Power plant that was damaged by the earthquake and tsunami that hit north-east Japan Mar 11.

Fourteen-year-old Satikanta Sahu loves going to school, but these days, he would rather spend his time manning the barricade and facing down policemen in the sandy coastal village of Govindpur in India’s eastern state of Orissa.

Every month, Buddhist monk Phra Patarapong visits this village of mostly wooden houses on stilts and draws crowds, but not just for his regular sermons on spiritualism. People come to see him also for his tips on health, in particular his warnings about the excessive use of antibiotics.

The leaders of Central America, Colombia and Mexico called on the governments of the world's main drug-consuming countries to play a stronger role in fighting drug trafficking and organised crime by stepping up control of weapons sales and taking effective measures to crack down on consumption.

'I want my own roof over my head, my own home. I don't want to live in a curtained-off cubicle surrounded by masses of people,' says Elena Díaz, who does ironing for a living and lives in a temporary shelter in the centre of the Venezuelan capital.

Some 13 million people across Europe, Russia, and other parts of the world remain largely dependent on Afghanistan's poppy production to fuel their addiction to heroin, according to a new U.N. report on global use of illicit drugs.