News headlines in 2011, page 171

Following a major rally involving tens of thousands of protesters calling for electoral reforms in Malaysia, someone set up a Facebook page calling for Prime Minister Najib Razak to step down. Within ten days, the number of people who said they 'like' the page crossed 200,000.

Down by the old harbour in Reykjavik, a small group of volunteers in pale blue T-shirts can be seen handing out leaflets that say 'Meet us don’t eat us'. Beneath the slogan is a picture of a whale, followed by 'Whales are being killed to feed tourists. Don’t let your visit leave a bad taste in your mouth.'

The decision was expected, yet it shook the world’s nuclear establishment. On May 29, some two and a half months after disaster struck at Japan’s Fukushima- Daiichi nuclear complex, Germany’s right-wing government of Angela Merkel announced that Germany is exiting from the nuclear era.

A transboundary water project is reinforcing the fight against food insecurity and poverty along the Komati River which flows through South Africa, Swaziland and Mozambique.

While recession in the U.S. delivered a series of record lows, from crashing property prices to residual birth and marriage rates, an analysis of new census data suggests it accomplished at least one record high - the wealth gap between whites and minorities.

Government leaders, U.N. officials and representatives from over 400 hundred youth organisations concluded two days of talks Tuesday on such issues as the importance of youth in eradicating poverty and how to stabilise the global economic system in the face of myriad challenges.

'Our American family will only be as strong as our Latino community,' U.S. President Barack Obama said in his address at the National Council of La Raza's annual conference in Washington on Monday.

The United Nations Human Rights Committee confirmed the central role of freedom of expression in human rights, making it clear that it can only be limited in the most exceptional circumstances, and calling for the first time for unrestricted public access to official information.

Rwanda is the first country in the world where women outnumber men in parliament, with women occupying 45 out of 80 seats. However, despite this, experts say that the country still needs a gender equality perspective on how national resources and programmes are implemented.

As Haiti struggles to recover from the deadly January 2010 earthquake that killed over 200,000 people and forced nearly 1.5 million into camps, international funding is failing to keep pace with the generous pledges made last year, and in- fighting in Haiti's new government is hindering the disbursement of aid.