News headlines in June 2011, page 22

The novelty of the super-fast ride on China’s bullet train never seems to wear off. On board of the inter-city train connecting the capital with the port city of Tianjin 117 km east you can buy an arm-long model of China’s prestige train and more than two years since its launch there are still many enthusiastic takers.

About 5,000 people attended the Equality Parade in Polish capital Warsaw this weekend. Among them, the country’s first transgender rights activists, who in the last couple of years have made great strides in gaining recognition for the country’s transgender community.

When reports of protests and subsequent civilian deaths as security forces fired on protestors began filtering in from the southern Syrian city of Dera‘a in March, many wondered what turn events would take in both Syria and the international community in the wake of earlier uprisings during the ‘Arab Spring’.

When the devastating ‘Boxing Day’ tsunami hit Sri Lanka in December 2004, claiming over 35,000 lives and rendering 1.5 million people homeless, the World Health Organization (WHO) was confronted by a second disaster soon after it arrived to begin relief efforts in early January.

Nearly ten years after seizing control of Republican foreign policy, neo- conservatives and other hawks appear to be losing it.

'They are very distressed. Their father, mother and two brothers have been killed. They have expressed the wish to leave the country,' Colombian Vice President Angelino Garzón said after meeting Tuesday with the surviving daughters and son of Ana Fabricia Córdoba, a prominent land rights activist assassinated on Jun. 7.

Like Russia, China, India and Brazil, the African nations seem to be getting increasingly wary of the consequences of the Western powers’ military strikes in Libya - the oil rich North African country currently embroiled in violent political upheaval.

The first-ever official meeting of Ministers of Agriculture from G20 countries, to be held in Paris Jun. 22-23, presents an extraordinary opportunity. Tasked with developing an action plan to address price volatility in food and agricultural markets and its impact on the poor, the ministers are uniquely positioned to not only tackle the immediate price volatility problems, but also to take on a more fundamental and long-term challenge - extreme poverty and hunger.

For most of the world the issue of Kosovo is long over. The nation declared independence from Serbia in 2008 and has gained recognition from 76 out of 192 U.N. member states.

The United Nations is lagging far behind some of its own member states in recognising the rights of gays and lesbians who remain closeted in an institution that does not always practice what it preaches to the outside world.