News headlines in 2011, page 173

Egypt's transitional military rulers reiterated Monday their pledge to hand over power to a civilian elected government and denied they are seeking to carve out a patriarchal role in the country's future political life.

The rape of a young woman that has become a symbolic case in Nicaragua was ruled a 'crime of passion' by the Supreme Court in a verdict that is suspected to have political overtones.

International donors have given more than one billion dollars to ease the famine in Somalia and elsewhere in the Horn of Africa, but U.N. officials say another billion will be needed to prevent the situation from deteriorating in other areas.

For the first time ever, the finance minister has allocated almost four million dollars from the current national budget to provide free sanitary pads to schoolgirls.

The work of the International Criminal Court (ICC), the world's first and only permanent court that pursues war criminals, is likely to be hampered by a shortage of funds next year.

Brazil sets acceptable drinking water limits for 22 different types of pesticides and fertilisers, 13 heavy metals, 13 solvents and six disinfectants. However, these are sometimes exceeded for economic reasons or due to inadequate monitoring.

If voters in this remote village, deep inside Sri Lanka’s former war zone, turned out in strength for the historical Jul. 23 local body elections, it had to do with the availability of buses to ferry them to the nearest polling station 20 km away.

Major operational shortcomings are behind the recent spate of crashes at airports around the Democratic Republic of Congo, raising questions about safety for aircraft and passengers in the central African country.

Swaziland’s economic crisis has affected its ability to provide healthcare as the country’s buffer stock of antiretrovirals (ARVs) has fallen below the prescribed three-month supply.

'It has been 65 years but please don’t retire' Vincent Cochetel United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees joked from the podium in the Museum of the City of New York.