News headlines in June 2011, page 12

Any Australian government efforts to have two of its citizens spared from the death penalty in Indonesia have been made more difficult by past refusals to intervene on behalf of three Indonesian Islamists in the lead-up to their executions in 2008.

The pain and anger in 25-year-old Rukhsana Langho’s voice could be heard over the telephone line from Quetta, the capital of Balochistan province, 700 kms north of the port city of Karachi. 'We hate Pakistan and we want freedom,' she says, bitter over the disappearance of her brother more than a year ago.

In a much-anticipated decision, U.S. President Barack Obama announced here Wednesday evening that he will withdraw 10,000 of the 100,000 U.S. troops currently deployed in Afghanistan by the end of this year and a total of 33,000 by some time next summer.

As the second Freedom Flotilla, made up of some 10 ships carrying 1,000 activists from 20 countries, gets ready to sail for the besieged Gaza Strip, Israeli authorities are stepping up their threats.

Ban Ki-moon, who has been re-elected Secretary-General of the United Nations for a second five-year term beginning next January, dismissed longstanding speculation that he plans to run for the office of president in his home country, South Korea.

Civilian deaths have raised serious misgivings about the U.N.-authorised NATO intervention in Libya among the most ardent supporters of the ongoing air campaign.

The hardest part of Jan Egeland’s job is coming home at the end of the day. He is the Director of the Norwegian Institute for International Affairs and the former U.N. Emergency Relief Coordinator, and has travelled to the farthest reaches of the world to help protect refugees and displaced people.

As the date for South Sudan’s long anticipated Jul. 9 secession inches closer, on-going violence in the Northern state of South Kordofan threatens to destroy the country’s hopes for peace.

The Pakistani public’s perceptions of the United States have hit their lowest level since the 2002 invasion of Afghanistan, according to a new survey released here Tuesday by the Pew Global Attitudes Project (GAP).

Carbon markets have been widely promoted as the only way to generate enough money to enable industries and countries to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions, which are largely responsible for global warming. The only problem is that nearly 20 years after their conception, they have failed to work, and have also been subject to fraud and other financial crimes.