News headlines in June 2011, page 40

The death of 'multiculturalism' has been proclaimed repeatedly recently, the idea pronounced with a big 'M' as if we were talking of something tangible around which there is consensus.

Four decades after Washington declared its 'war on drugs' and began to spread the doctrine south of the U.S. border, the government of the Brazilian state of Rio de Janeiro decided to shift away from that approach towards a strategy focused on community policing.

The microfinance industry is expanding at breakneck pace, with more banks and private equity firms now entering the fray. Yet there is growing unease about the naive assumptions, and evangelical predictions, of its advocates.

The decision by the German government of Chancellor Angela Merkel to phase out nuclear power by 2022 will increase efficiency in the use of energy, boost investment and accelerate technical progress in renewable energy sources, and promote international energy cooperation, according to numerous experts.

In spite of the nominally pro-Russian government in Ukraine, the country will most likely sign a free trade agreement with the EU by the end of the year, in what will be a blow to Russia’s interests.

Sri Lanka plans to host the Commonwealth Games seven years from now and spend two billion dollars, in what politicians and economists slam as another extravagant adventure aimed at boosting President Mahinda Rajapaksa.

In a country where capital punishment is rare, human rights activists are surprised by a sudden move to hang a Sikh separatist militant convicted for bombing attacks on a senior police officer and a Congress party politician in the early 1990s.

Unseasonable rains falling for months and months in much of Venezuela have taken lives, destroyed homes, damaged crops and affected huge numbers of people. Experts blame the high level of damages on the improvised actions of citizens and the state.

For years, European governments and corporations have made use of a loophole in the Kyoto protocol on climate change to make exorbitant profits. According to some sources, this lucrative scheme has caused more pollution than ever before.

Several years ago, anyone calling for an end to Washington's 'war on drugs' would be considered a heretic. Today, high- level politicians and business people, backed by thousands of regular citizens, are doing just that.