News headlines in June 2011, page 5

Two days ahead of a formal vote scheduled for Jun. 30, former French finance minister Christine Lagarde became the first woman to be appointed managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), headquartered in Washington, Tuesday.

It's been nearly three decades since Argentina's 1976-1983 military dictatorship came to an end, but the sex crimes committed against political prisoners are just now starting to draw more attention, after being pushed into the background in human rights trials.

During the years when governments and the media were focused on preparations for the 2009 Copenhagen climate negotiations, a powerful climate movement was emerging in the United States: the movement opposing the construction of new coal-fired power plants.

When the five-month-old political standoff in Cote d'Ivoire came to an end in early April, the strife-torn West African nation was expected to return to normal - later than sooner.

'Today we are launching the new campaign for demobilisation in Caguán. Planting seeds of hope against the terror of the FARC,' Colombian Defence Minister Rodrigo Rivera recently wrote in his Twitter account.

Too many tourists and too much climate change are the main concerns of environmental organisations and the governments of signatory countries of the Antarctic Treaty, which came into effect 50 years ago.

The world can be fixed if democracy is consolidated and politicians take charge and, rather than cave in to pressure from financial institutions, replace the current speculation-based economy with one based on knowledge, writes Federico Mayor Zaragoza, ex-Director General of UNESCO, President of the Foundation for a Culture of Peace and President of IPS News Agency.

When the monthly contraceptive injection that Bernadette Asiimwe, a mother of four, got from government health centres in western Uganda was out of stock for weeks, she fell pregnant with her fifth child.

The plan to create a new 26-nation liberalised trade zone for Africa, spanning the length of the continent from Cape to Cairo, could open up more possibilities for South-South cooperation that would benefit Africans.

Caribbean journalists meeting here last weekend celebrated the news that not a single colleague was killed during the first six months of this year.